
COPYRIGHT DEPOSIT. 



THE 

GOLDEN RULE REPUBLIC 

NO UTOPIA 

BY 

WILLIAM H. RANDALL 



"And yet show I unto you a more 
excellent way." — The Apostle Paul. 




PUBLISHED BY 

THK CO-OPERATIVE PRINTING COMPANY, 

CHICAGO, ILLINOIS. 

1908, 



^LIBRARY of CON€ 
jwo Copies HewwwS 

MAP 19 IW.8 

■COPY 8«_ 






COPYRIGHT BY 

WILLIAM H. RANDAIyly, 

RIVERSIDE, CALIF. 



r 



TO 

RUFUS. W. WEEKS, 

A TRUE FEU.OW-WORKER UNTO THE KINGDOM OF GOD, 

THIS VOLUME, 

WRITTEN FOR THE SAKE OF OUR 

MASTER AND I<ORD JESUS CHRIST, 

IS DEDICATED BY HIS FRIEND AND COMRADE, 

THK AUTHOR. 



CONTENTS: 

Section. Page. 

1. Of the Golden Rule as a Basis for Life in Society 7 

2. The Right to a Living 10 

The General and the Special Dividend 15 

3. How Much the Dividends Might Amount To 22 

Would the Dividend be Satisfactory and Feasible ? 24 

4. The Working of the Dividend Illustrated 27 

The Price Commission 30 

5. The Right to a Home 38 

6. Of the Effect of Socialism Upon the World of Wealth and 

Luxury 46 

7. The Right to Property 50 

8. Of Interest 58 

9. Of Money 62 

10. The Right to Labor 64 

The Organization of Labor 66 

The Discipline of Labor 70 

The Liberty of Labor 74 

Individual Initiative and Independent Labor 77 

Unpopular Occupations 84 

Woman's Work 92 

Order in Production 95 

The Distribution of Products 97 

The Public Service 100 

11. Is the System here Presented Feasible? 107 

12. The Right to a Good Government Ill 

The Judiciary 122 

13. The Right to Education 127 

14. The Right to Recreation 140 

15. The Right to Honor 147 

16. The Right to Freedom of Association and Expression 153 

17. The Right to Worship 157 

18. The New Commonwealth Pictured 161 

19. Of the Transition to the New Order 167 

20. After-Word to the Reader 180 



The Golden Rule Republic 
No Utopia 

§ 1. OP THE GOLDEN BTJLE AS A BASIS FOR LIFE 
IN SOCIETY. 

All things therefore whatsoever ye would that men should do 
unto you, even so do ye also unto them. — Matt 7:12. (Revised Ver- 
sion.) 

Thou shalt love thy neighbor as thyself. — Matt. 22:39. 

This Golden Eule and this Law of Love are a com- 
mandment to live by, and not to preach from only. These 
are the deliverances of the divine Master and Lawgiver of 
mankind: man's Maker too, for "without Him was not any- 
thing made that hath been made." (John 1:3.) The com- 
mandment framed in these words was given to be obeyed by 
all men everywhere and through all time. Obedience to it 
is therefore practicable. 

Perhaps no one will question this. Men and women of 
every race, in every land, are acting upon the Golden Eule ; if 
they did not, society would not long hold together. In com- 
mon life, men are apt to be kindly and ready to help one an- 
other, unless the natural good feeling is barred by some preju- 
dice, or strong counter interest. 

Here lies a peculiar difficulty as to social problems, which 
makes the task of discussion often unwelcome and the prog- 
ress of truth always slow, in the fact that our lives are so 
built upon prejudices. We take them in through every sense 
in childhood. What else are our early impressions, that, in 
literal time, according to the etymology of the word "preju- 
dice," antedate reason? Classes in society, and even whole 



8 THE GOLDEN RULE REPUBLIC. 

communities, are often so possessed with unfounded notions, 
absorbed without reflection, that a time-worn error or injus- 
tice holds its ground among them like an unquestionable 
axiom. And yet, the majesty of reason will assert itself; 
and by and by, against all hostile advantages, truth wins its 
way. 

The civilized world, at least, acknowledges the beauty 
and authority of the Golden Eule in every part of life except 
in war and in business, two very remarkable exceptions. 
There are conservatives who fondly cherish the belief that fair 
profits and fair wages might bring our system of business 
into harmony with the divine law. They invariably remem- 
ber some better days, when, as they think, the relations be- 
tween men were thoroughly friendly and competition was 
only inspiring and helpful. It is true that there have been 
days in our own country when the land was by far too great 
for the people. Then, if conditions became hard anywhere, 
a man could turn his hand at once, and American versatility 
passed into a proverb : nature invited him with opportunities 
for a livelihood abundant and free : above all he was himself 
master of the situation, because the leading demand every- 
where was for men. The poor man had no thought of such 
a calamity to him as an overstocked labor market, but worked 
and voted with as independent spirit as his neighbor, the 
squire. 

But the softening haze of time colors as well as dims 
the darker lines of that pleasing picture. Even in those days 
there were many hardships and oppressions wrought under 
the name of business. In our "golden age," as always since 
the invention of money (that "answereth all things"), the 
power of money stirred up the greed for gain, with its bitter 
hardening of the heart. 

Now, under present conditions, our land is growing 
crowded with people. Every census discloses how millions of 
them, and steadily, swiftly, more and more, are suffering from 
the pressure of competition. It is cold comfort to the average 
man to tell him "there is always room at the top," for, in the 
nature of the case, he cannot get there. We must deal with 
the problems of today and the prospect that looms daily more 
darkly before us. The competitive system never did agree 



THE GOLDEN RULE REPUBLIC. 9 

with the Golden Eule; but, now, when it seems to be falling, 
crushed by its own weight of selfishness, our aim must be to 
show the feasibility of a better, happier, more durable social 
order, established upon the divine foundation. We must 
show that more is attainable than economists conceive of, who 
talk about "fair profits and fair wages." Under conditions 
not too high for ordinary human nature to realize, there will 
be, if not in our own day, soon enough for many of our loved 
ones to enjoy them, equal advantages to every child, equal 
opportunities to every man or woman, so far as things in this 
world are subject to the making or control of society. 

Already we have entered the shadow of the approach- 
ing Economic Eevolution, beside which, ere it is finished, the 
upheaval in France a hundred years ago may decline to the 
rank of an incident. Still, the world has witnessed its equal 
at least twice, when intellectual liberty and when political 
liberty were attained, and the adverse odds were greater then. 
Those battles, indeed, are far from ended yet, but the victory 
is really won in them. This time, it may appear that the 
struggle will be more dreadful than ever, but it need not 
prove so, nor will if the practical wisdom of our forefathers 
has not deserted their children. The actual crisis may not 
be violent or conspicuous. When that hour strikes, however, 
the worth of the common people of our land will encounter 
its utmost trial. No vast movement ever rested so directly 
for success upon the intelligence and self-control of the pro- 
letariat, who must dominate their own leaders and hold them 
true. There can be no compromise made upon the citadels 
of capitalist power. They must, every one, be surrendered 
completely to the people, the whole people. But in that 
hour of opening triumph, if the leaders of the masses possess 
the wisdom to advance securely, mindful of the Golden Eule 
not less than of justice, maintaining each line of continuity 
with the past that can harmonize with the principles of the 
future, unselfishly choosing the office of a reformer, even 
though their calling be to "reform it altogether," rather than 
the more ambitious mission to destroy whatever is old in 
order to make all things new, the grandest of all revolutions 
may be passed without a cataclysm, and its fruits of blessing 
will ripen in a lasting peace. 



10 THE GOLDEN RULE REPUBLIC. 



§ 2. THE EIGHT TO A LIVING. 

To settle the question of a living for all the members 
of a community on the basis of the Golden Rule would seem, 
at the first thought, to be a simple matter. Every man is 
able to produce much more, not of one thing only, but of 
many, than he alone requires to use. Let the work be rightly 
arranged and distributed, and let every one share with the 
rest ; then all can have whatever they want, or, at least, what- 
ever they need. Men have done so during the brief intervals 
when Love has reigned among them, and under that Higher 
Law there is no other way. The principle is clear. 

But difficulties arise promptly when we come to work 
out the necessary plans for organization, because, along with 
all that is better, the monstrous bulk of selfishness and preju- 
dice in society has to be dealt with. Yet we may venture to 
explore this new continent of public policy with courage and 
entire frankness, assured that the clue we follow can lead us 
only right. 

The undertaking is no slight one. It is, to design a state 
in which the weak man may dwell beside the strong, secure 
of enjoying, achieving, expanding, rising, to the limit that 
is possible for him, no less than his stronger neighbor. His 
first need is a living. If this is at the mercy of competition, 
he will be dragged down by and by, no matter on what a 
height he may, for the moment, have been placed. Compe- 
tition means freedom of action, and this, in turn, means free- 
dom to combine. If the weak, by uniting, begin to appear 
formidable, the strong are no less free to make their com- 
binations, and are sure to overmaster them. Some abuses 
of such power are due to forms of statutes, and can be reme- 
died ; but the power itself rests in the foundations of our 
social order, and, in spite of statutes, it will be a breeder of 
injustice until that order is changed. Economists who favor 



THE GOLDEN RULE REPUBLIC. 11 

the competitive system admit these evils, but allege that free- 
dom of action is to be chosen at any cost : or, that freedom 
of combination must be so restricted as to allow competition 
to be really free, a task at which legislators will, for awhile, 
vainly amuse themselves: or, that the general improvement 
in living among all classes is proof enough that the system 
has been working for the best, and therefore it ought not to 
be disturbed: or, that the miseries incident to competition 
are akin to processes of nature, and must be accepted as be- 
neficent in the large, far-reaching, unemotional, scientific 
view, however severe : or, summing up the whole, they counsel 
us to "rather bear the ills we have, than fly to others that 
we know not of." 

But such arguments have no help in them for the weak 
and needy, who, even down to the "submerged tenth," have 
the natural right to an equal chance for a living with the 
great captain of industry and the scholarly professor of eco- 
nomics who agree in thinking that the world would be better 
off without them. The defenses of the competitive system 
all ring hollow under the same stroke. Not one of them 
endures the touch of the divine Law of Love. The nearest 
approach to a rational basis for the system that can be dis- 
covered is found in the analogy between its operations and 
that struggle for existence which is observed among the 
lower ranks of nature. But the grand intent of the New 
Testament is to throw another light upon human life, even 
in the lowliest creature who stands erect in the person of a 
man. These philosophers have left Jesus Christ out of their 
list of authorities. His doctrine is that men, however sub- 
ject, as animals, to the same laws as the rest of the animal 
creation, are, by virtue of their spiritual nature, members 
of another and higher order of being, regarded by the all- 
creating Father as his children and as brothers in one world- 
wide family. Here is a profoundly different law for the 
mutual relations of men from that under which the birds 
and beasts and fishes prey upon one another. Let the im- 
pulse to obey the Master fearlessly never be daunted in any 
breast by predictions of dreadful consequences to follow, in 
lands crowded beyond their resources for sustenance by hordes 
of degenerate weaklings. The records of the nineteenth cen- 



12 THE GOLDEN RULE REPUBLIC. 

tury give accumulating evidence, in the increase of vital ener- 
gies and the lengthening of life where conditions of society 
are most enlightened, at the same time with a steady lessen- 
ing of the birth-rate to the number that is indispensable to 
the maintenance of population, all tending to assure us that 
the world will never be burdened with hospitals and alms 
houses by the survival of the unfit under the workings of the 
Golden Rule. 

Can any one endowed with natural, humane feelings 
argue seriously in behalf of the competitive system that it 
prevents over-population? It would seem incredible, but the 
talk about natural selection and the survival of the fittest, 
when applied to competition in business, amounts to the same 
thing. The effects of war in reducing population and mul- 
tiplying waste and wickedness and wretchedness are written 
large all over the old world, and its blight has fallen already 
upon the fairest regions of the new. Some one has always 
been found who profited by a war, but the gratification of a 
few can no longer be suffered to extenuate the horrors of 
organized, aggressive, wholesale slaughter. Yet competition, 
as soon as the field grows narrow, becomes war under legal 
forms, nothing else, and the misery, crime and death result- 
ing are fully equal to those attendant upon the bloodiest cam- 
paigns. Do you question this? What makes the difference 
between the crowded slums, with their perpetual massacre 
of the innocents, and the New England township of my boy- 
hood, where there was scarcely a person poor enough to accept 
of charity? Human nature in the two places is not so dif- 
ferent. The political economist of the current financial 
school, having no fear of want before his own eyes, answers 
calmly that "there were few people in the country town, and 
no pressure upon the means of subsistence, while in the great 
city the inevitable struggle leads necessarily to extremes of 
social conditions, the most competent upon the whole rising 
to the top according to the common fashion of Nature's ad- 
justments, which are rough, it may be, in details of operation, 
but in the end prove themeslves wise, though stern." The 
argument is plausibly stated; but under the light of the teach- 
ings of Jesus of Nazareth it shows unmitigated baseness. 



THE GOLDEN RULE REPUBLIC. 13 

There is war, then — a struggle — where there ought to be, 
and therefore can be, mutual help. This putting the rich 
man's selfishness on a level with the powers above man savors 
of hypocrisy. Every life that is spoiled by poverty or fettered 
by circumstances apart from vices of its own would be taken 
out of that depression if our social order were established 
upon human brotherhood instead of such impulses as ani- 
mate wild beasts. The man who accepts the notion that our 
competitive system applies to human society like a law of 
nature has never yet learned the first lessons in Christian 
ethics. He does not know the wisdom or the power of Love. 

If no observed facts had given reason for such confidence, 
we should none the less be sure that obedience to the moral 
laws of the beneficent All-Father will never lead to any sort 
of ruin. Xatural and spiritual laws will not so conflict that, 
through helping instead of destroying one another, the hu- 
man race will increase to such numbers as may outrun the 
resources for proper sustenance. Nor will any counter ten- 
dency occasion a decay of normal family life, as a penalty 
for the wider sense of brotherhood. There must be an aver- 
age of three children to a family, enough, certainly, to make 
home perfect, if the population is simply to be maintained 
against the losses by deaths and childless women. It is 
presumable that the Power above us, that delights in virtue, 
designs ultimately to preserve the highest species among his 
creatures in health and happiness. 

But the friends of competition do not admit that the 
results of it, upon the whole, are evil for any class. "Look 
at London, for example," they say; "it is because the poorest 
of its millions live in a more healthful manner than their 
ancestors did that the Black Death visits the city no more. 
The worst fed or housed of farm laborers are not as wretched 
as the peasants whom Arthur Young saw in France in the 
days of Louis XVI. There are few today who have not 
sometimes enjoyed a taste of a hundred various pleasures 
for the senses which their forefathers could not dream of. 
Knowledge has been brought down to the masses, emphat- 
ically; the beggar can read, and a newspaper which he picks 
up in the street will set before him an amount of informa- 
tion quite equal to a costly, black-letter volume. The ex- 



14 THE GOLDEN RULE REPUBLIC. 

pense and trouble of traveling has been brought within the 
means of the very poor, as is plainly shown by the extent to 
which they do travel ; a fact which is of the utmost social and 
political significance. All these, and many other improve- 
ments upon past times, have taken place under the reign of 
competition, and the man of leisure wonders why the Chris- 
tian socialist is not contented with such an account of 
progress." 

But with all these good things, whether due to competi- 
tion or to other causes, there is scarcely a beginning yet made 
in legislation to the fulfillment of the Golden Kule. How 
can it be otherwise ? Competition is not founded upon Love. 
There is no equity in the division of this abundance. Com- 
forts are multiplied, and a share of the increase reaches the 
poor, but nine-tenths is held by the rich. Treasures of art 
and of letters have been gathered, avenues opened for the 
culture that ennobles and the recreation that renews the man, 
but the proportion of those who can lay toil aside long enough 
to profit by them is about the same as ever. Class lines are, 
happily, less rigidly fixed among us than in some other coun- 
tries and ages, but they exist, and the distance between the 
highest and the lowest, as measured by property, never was 
so great before. These are undeniable effects of competition, 
and they are contradictory to that scriptural and rational 
idea of life which is expressed in the phrase "the human 
family." In a true home, each inmate contributes all he can 
to the common welfare, and all share equally. The stronger 
does not take away the portion of the weaker brother. We 
have forged our way upward from savagery through slow 
concessions from princes and warriors to the peace-desiring 
people, from the few to the many, until at length society 
reaches a crisis and hour of judgment, when a just and con- 
clusive limit can be imposed by law upon the grasping powers 
of individual selfishness. Whatever may be said for the ad- 
vance of civilization, the competitive order of business has 
been thoroughly weighed in the balance and found wanting. 
It has served its turn as a step in the evolution of humanity, 
a higher stage than the earlier times of lawless violence; but 
no ingenuity of logic can ever reconcile it with the Golden 
Eule. Its corner-stone is wrong. 



THE GOLDEN RULE REPUBLIC. 15 



THE GENERAL AND THE SPECIAL DIVIDEND. 

There is no alternative but the right one. Competition 
has resulted in depriving the weaker man of his natural right 
to a living; and there is no way left to restore it but through 
co-operation. Society must provide for him. But we are 
aiming to organize for justice and manliness and self-help; 
not for charity. The provision must, therefore, be a general 
one, applying to all citizens alike. Never fear that a uni- 
versal "Dividend" would entail any resemblance to pauper- 
ism. There is no peer, or admiral, or judge, no soldier or 
sailor, who is too proud to accept a pension; why then should 
any citizen who has deserved well of his country be ashamed ? 
The dividend would merely become the legal and uniform 
way for every person to receive the compensation due to him 
for his labor. 

Questions multiply here, and all must be fairly answered. 
How can the equality of conditions intended by socialism 
be preserved for any length of time in the teeth of such de- 
structive forces as will be tirelessly busy, every day and hour, 
to renew the inequalities? Men are wholly unequal in their 
power and their disposition to do profitable work. Are all 
to be rewarded equally ? We reply that the same paramount 
considerations which have placed an equal ballot in the hands 
of the wisest and the most ignorant voter make it absolutely 
necessary that this dividend should be equal and universal. 
Next to the ballot, this would be the one most efficient, ever 
recurring safeguard of the humble citizen's life, the one im- 
passable barrier against which the tides of avarice shall break 
and their waves be stayed. 

But there is a command, veiled under the guise of a 
prediction, of earlier deliverance than the Golden Rule, which 
says to man : "In the sweat of thy face shalt thou eat bread." 
(Gen. 3:19.) In accordance with this rigorous yet kindly 
principle, the living provider] by the social commonwealth 



16 THE GOLDEN RULE REPUBLIC. 

for its members must be divided impartially upon the basis 
of labor performed. It will not be a fixed, annual sum, irre- 
spective of personal services rendered, but a rate of compen- 
sation for hours of labor, measured in terms of a labor unit. 
This is simple and equitable: because the question of sub- 
sistence reduces to the natural resources, which belong to all, 
and the tools, which society can furnish, and the labor, which 
must be the contribution of individuals. As many hours of 
useful effort as the citizen has given to the common weal, 
so many shares he may receive in the distribution of the 
aggregate product of the common industry. 

The unit should be one hour of labor, expended in any 
approved direction, and accepted as up to the required stand- 
ard of the lowest grade. For the object of the general divi- 
dend, every class of industry must be treated as alike hon- 
orable and as worthy of equal pay. Disagreeable or dan- 
gerous occupations would be dealt with as a separate class. 
Manhood labor will correspond to manhood suffrage. This 
follows closely from the spirit of the Golden Eule. If the 
"man with the hoe" has to live poorly because his work is 
hard and unskilled, both he and his family will suffer priva- 
tion on account of something that is not a fault, and that 
may be out of his power to remedy, and they will be hindered 
from a fair, free access to life's opportunities. This is need- 
less under the socialist order ; and it is opposed to all natural 
analogies under the Law of Love. The boy who helps his 
father by doing the roughest of the chores is sure of just 
as good a seat at the family table as his brother, who is in the 
bank. There is no moral right at all in the idea that higher 
work ought to have higher pay. Why should it ? The esti- 
mation in which it is held is itself a higher reward, which 
is natural and sufficient. And if a coarser and less agreeable 
task has been as well done in its kind, why should not society 
meet the faithful laborer with an equal emolument? It is 
just and fraternal and wise to do so. No application of the 
principle of human brotherhood can be plainer than this; 
but we dwell upon it a little only because it, nevertheless, 
awakes so much unreasoning hostility. 

There is another aspect of this whole question which we 



THE GOLDEN RULE REPUBLIC. 17 

must now consider. The Golden Kule means, not only secu- 
rity of a living for every citizen, but room for all the end- 
less, healthful play of individual wills and pleasures. For 
one thing, better work in any line does deserve higher pay. 
There must be a maximum as well as a minimum compensa- 
tion for labor, uniform through all departments of industry, 
that there may be no starting point for an aristocracy in 
labor, but supplying, in the form of the special dividend, a 
higher material reward for higher merit. The workers in 
every occupation should be classified according to the quality 
and amount of their work, and an earned promotion, with its 
answerable advance of pay, up to the highest rank, should be 
open to all. Here is a difference of living provided for among 
the citizens of the socialist state. This proposed arrange- 
ment, of a general dividend and a special dividend, is a policy 
of the greatest interest and importance. How much difference 
there might prove to be, between the maximum and the mini- 
mum, would depend partly on the amount of total product 
to be divided, and partly upon the diffusion of energy and 
ambition among the people. But the main point would be 
to guarantee and facilitate this promotion upon merit to 
every laborer. The variations of fortune created by such 
means and in such conditions would stimulate hope and 
exertion far more than they can do any harm. 

How shall a system so vast as these dividends would in- 
volve be organized for successful administration? On the 
one hand, the few, grand measures, which secure the welfare 
of all the people by co-operative action, must be so clearly 
drawn and strongly established that no violence or craft of any 
powerful minority can pervert or nullify them. On the other 
hand, it is not less necessary that the sphere of compulsory 
co-operation should be restricted within the narrowest limits, 
and the widest practicable range of freedom should be left to 
the individual man. Providence here comes to our aid. We 
have, in the American system of federal and state govern- 
ments, a most admirable framework already prepared for us. 

There should be a department of the federal government 
engaged in collecting data as to production and distribution; 
and the entire control of the products of the nation should 



18 THE GOLDEN" RULE REPUBLIC. 

belong to the federal authority. But local government, from 
the smallest school district, or precinct, or township, upward, 
should be as complete and free as possible. Public interests, 
however, such as education. or highways, usually affect larger 
areas at the same time, and their management must there- 
fore be entrusted, more or less, to larger divisions. The allot- 
ment of industries according to the demands of the whole 
people, so much food to be produced, so much clothing, so 
much building to be done, so much mining, so much made 
to exchange for products of foreign countries, and so on, 
must be the prerogative of the federal government. But the 
ordering of terms upon which producers may work, singly 
or in combination, the hours or conditions of labor, and 
many other things may be left to the several states, or to 
smaller divisions, such as cities and counties, as the states 
may direct. 

When the returns of a year's work are in from the en- 
tire nation, the commissioners at Washington would know in 
what cities or districts of the whole Union, including every 
kind of employment, the citizens have made the lowest aver- 
age of individual production, reckoning by the labor ex- 
pended, and not the price of the product. If no peculiar 
calamity has occurred, such as fire, or flood, or epidemic 
sickness, this would mean either or both of two things, fewer 
hours of labor, or a product barely reaching the most inferior 
usable quality. If the products could not be brought up to 
the standard accepted for the lowest grade of these articles, 
the laborers themselves must drop out of the ranks of pro- 
ducing citizens into the class of incapables, for whom every 
state is obliged to make some careful provision. But the 
low tide mark of earnings in the whole country may be em- 
ployed to determine the standard of the first or general divi- 
dend. Every laborer in the nation would then be entitled 
to draw from the national treasury as large a sum as his own 
hours of labor would amount to, at the rate of the average 
hourly earnings in the least efficient communities of all. 
This would constitute the living assured to every citizen 
within the national domain. 

But there is more to follow. Whatever the proportion 
of the annual product of the nation's industry may be that 



THE GOLDEN RULE REPUBLIC. 19 

is absorbed in the general dividend, an immense balance will 
remain. Out of this, all appropriations for public uses would 
be made, not for idle reserves to lie heaped in treasury vaults, 
nor for debts, for there need be none; not for salaries of 
officials, because the labor-unit and the dividends would apply- 
to the president and the hod-carrier alike; but, in the first 
place, to supply the erections and machinery needed to con- 
tinue and improve and enlarge the work of production and 
distribution, and then for the plant and maintenance required 
for roads and harbors, transportation and postal service, 
houses with light and heat and water, schools and libraries 
and parks and hospitals and military establishments, and 
every sort of public enterprise or institution. These outlays 
may be liberal beyond our dreams of privilege, and still they 
will not nearly exhaust the surplus. Then the remainder 
would be all distributed in the second, or special dividend, 
every worker who has attained to the second grade receiving 
one share for each hour's work he has done, every one in the 
third grade receiving two shares, and so on, the maximum 
being everywhere the same. 

It seems natural to ask how superintendents, account- 
ants, instructors, professional men and others, who are called 
non-producing workers, would be regarded in making calcula- 
tions for the dividends. The answer is, that they are all im- 
portant factors in the nation's work and welfare, producers 
in a real, if not in a material, sense. Their work is as capa- 
ble of test, and adapted to promotion for merit, as that of 
any laborers, and their portion should be equal with the rest. 
The actual accumulations of wealth, each year, must be dis- 
tributed among the laborers, upon the basis of a dividend 
declared according to the returns of the year before — that 
is all. 

A graver difficulty is apprehended in distributing the 
good things of life, under socialism. How can envying and 
strife be avoided ? Will not the churl and the boor, when ail 
classes have been leveled, elbow themselves into the choicest 
places, engross all the luxuries, and make existence weari- 
some for better people ? There is no such danger. The solu- 



20 THE GOLDEN RULE REPUBLIC. 

tion is easy. There is not enough of any one of many arti- 
cles to supply all who desire them; nor can every one enjoy 
the first selection of a seat at the opera, or a location for his 
dwelling. It is necessary to set a price upon everything in 
order to restrict demand to the measure of supply. A board 
of commissioners of the federal government should fix the 
schedule of prices for articles of general use (those in less 
demand would be appraised simply at their labor cost) : while 
premiums for houses and similar matters might be regulated 
by local authorities. The question how to make the yearly 
earnings go as far as possible would be decided by each one as 
quietly, and in much the same manner, as it is today. 

No distinction on account of sex would be known in the 
distribution of the dividends. Women would be called upon 
to do their part in the work of production, choosing their 
occupations in the same manner as men. Married women 
would, in many cases, be able to continue in some produc- 
tive labor, and would be expected to do so while enjoying their 
full share in both the general and the special dividend. But 
mothers with children who need their care, or women with 
other duties at home that demand their time, would be as 
worthy as the members of any profession to receive support 
from the commonwealth. 

The annual federal budget would contain allowances for 
minors, including the estimated increase by births. Up to 
the legal age of maturity, whatever that may be, the sum al- 
lotted should ascend by steps from year to year, say, from 
$50 to $250. No minor should be admitted to the ranks 
of producers; a very necessary regulation, because the im- 
patient boys and girls are oftenest the ones most in need of 
training. No business should be thought of for children 
and youth, but preparation to enter life with perfect bodies, 
sound minds and right hearts. Of industrial training more 
must be said hereafter. 

Among the most beneficent features of the Golden Eule 
republic would be reckoned the retiring pension. This would 
mean the continuing of the dividend beyond the age fixed 
for retirement, which may be about sixty years; and at the 
rate, perhaps, of the average sum paid yearly during the nine 
or ten years previous to retiring, but without the correspond- 



THE GOLDEN RULE REPUBLIC. tfl 

ing requirement of labor. As the productive energy and per- 
manent wealth of the nation grew, the retiring age might 
be made earlier; or, if the general dividend were raised, the 
pension would share in the advance.^ Bellamy's idea is a 
happy one, that the citizens who are so exempted from labor 
would form a kind of natural senate, or class of elders, upon 
whom the community might depend for counsel and public 
service. There would, undoubtedly, be such talents, and occa- 
sions to employ them. It may be added that retirement 
would, probably, not be compulsory, and might be granted 
in some specified cases before the time, upon petition. 



22 THE GOLDEN RULE REPUBLIC. 



§ 3. HOW MUCH THE DIVIDENDS MIGHT 
AMOUNT TO. 

How high a standard of living could be provided 
for, uniformly, throughout the population, under such a sys- 
tem ? There are those who allege that the energy of produc- 
tiveness would decline under socialism; but the effect of such 
arrangements as have been described would certainly be to 
impose a strong and steady pressure upon the more indolent 
classes, who would constitute the bulk of the lowest grade ; 
and there would also be a very complete saving of the present 
enormous waste, in many ways. The question will arise again 
later in our inquiry. We may assume, for the moment, that 
the rate of production would be the same as now. 

A good American workman can produce a large amount 
of value in a given time. An estimate has been widely pub- 
lished, that such labor, in favorable circumstances, and aver- 
aging all industries, is worth $10 a day. But, without as- 
suming even as much as we might with safety, it is easy to 
show that citizens of the co-operative commonwealth would 
be enabled to live in comfort, surrounded by public privi- 
leges of the highest order, and that a reasonable rate of 
progress would soon confer upon them all the resources of 
happiness which intelligence, taste and right feeling could 
wish to enjoy. 

Suppose, for illustration, that 1,000,000 men produce 
what may be represented as annual values ranging from $500 
to $2,000, so as to average $3 a day for 300 working days, 
or $900 a year. According to this supposition, we will say 
that 500,000 of these workers earn an average of $500; 
400,000 average $1,125; and 100,000 average $2,000. The 
general dividend would amount to $500,000,000, and the sur- 
plus left in the treasury would be $400,000,000. Now let 
us suppose that $160,000,000 is devoted to public uses by 



THE GOLDEN RULE REPUBLIC. 23 

and -for this 5,000,000 of people (including the families), a 
less number than inhabit the state of Pennsylvania. Let 
there be three grades of workers — in fact, there would have 
to be more. The balance remaining for the special dividend, 
$240,000,000, will give to each member of the second grade, 
$400, and to each of the highest grade, $800. The poorest 
quality of workers in the nation would have $500 for a liv- 
ing, and the higher grades, respectively, $900 and $1,300; 
besides all enjoying alike the freest possible use of every 
variety of public advantages without money and without 
price. A little thinking will satisfy anyone that exemption 
from (at least) the greater part of taxes, no charges for 
freight or personal conveyance, no expense for water, heat, 
or light, or education, or medical attendance, and every pur- 
chasable article to be had at the same price, the lowest possi- 
ble, everywhere, with many other similar economies, would 
mean, at least, the practical doubling of a man's income; 
and there would be no need of laying aside one dollar for 
the future. 

In this rough illustration, we have not entered into the 
allowances which must be made in the general dividend, for 
time off, or for women and children, or the retiring pensions. 
It must be remembered that the income of a family would 
not be, as now, the income of its head alone, but of all its 
separate members. The assumed figures, upon which our 
estimate has been based, are far below the facts ; far enough, 
we judge, to leave room for all the additions that might 
be required. If the supposition is altered, so as to give an 
average of $5 a day, and we say that 500,000 of the workers 
belong to the highest grade, 400,000 to the next, and 100,000 
to the lowest, the general dividend will not be changed, but 
the surplus over it will mount up to $1,000,000,000, and, 
after deducting $300,000,000 for the public service, the spe- 
cial dividend of $700,000,000 would give to the second and 
third grades, respectively, $500 and $1,000, making their 
total living come to $1,000 and $1,500. It will be observed 
how swiftly an increase of productiveness augments the huge 
sums at the disposal of the commonwealth. It is quite proba- 
ble that the change from undirected labor to systematically 
directed labor in all departments of industry would of itself 



24 THE GOLDEN RULE REPUBLIC. 

double the rate of production; and this is but one of many 
vast economies under socialism. The increase would keep 
on indefinitely at equal pace with the social progress in the 
improvement of machinery and of manhood. We have pur- 
posely used under-estimates, in order to show what results 
are obtained even at the very lowest figures, but it may be 
that the special dividends named above should be multiplied 
at least by two. This, however, would depend in part upon 
the scale of appropriation for the public service, to which 
self-interest as well as public spirit would be likely to assign 
a prior claim. 

WOULD THE DIVIDEND BE SATISFACTORY AND FEASIBLE? 

Boes this brief suggestion of a modest living, sweetened 
by perfect security, and enriched by so many privileges, please 
the reader? Those who are receiving incomes much larger, 
and are self-confident, will not be charmed with the picture, 
unless the thought of multitudes admitted to such bright- 
ness and plenty, who never stepped within the circle before, 
appeals to their better nature. That prospect would appeal 
strongly to any Christian heart. If the subject is agitated 
in earnest, however, we shall hear, from some reverend and 
judicial quarters, much about the moral losses, in self-sacri- 
fice and fortitude and faith and benevolence, and the irrepar- 
able damage to the beauty and interest of life, that would 
ensue upon reducing its picturesque heights and hollows to 
a dead level of material equality. I would have those critics 
remember that no social revolution can be without its losses. 
When feudalism passed away, how much of enthusiasm and 
devotion, of picturesqueness and romance passed with it, never 
to appear in the same forms again ! But the world has moved 
upward and onward since those days. No one in his right 
mind would turn backward the course of time to restore the 
feudal ages. Human feelings are as fresh and rich and lim- 
itless as ever, and they are, and ever will be, the sources of 
the beauty and the wealth of life. What selfishness is this, 
for the comfortable critics to adjudge that millions ought 
to lie down in hardships and privations, lest the elements of a 
tragedy should be lacking for their private stage! What 



THE GOLDEN RULE REPUBLIC. 25 

an era of glorious flowering of every genius, on the other hand, 
might we not look for, in a country full of happy people! 

There are, doubtless, many who would welcome the idea 
of living upon the scale here described, if it were not for the 
fear of losing their personal independence. They would 
rather choose and change and act for themselves; and they 
imagine that socialism would curtail this freedom. It is 
true that some men are freer than they will be under social- 
ism. It will be the object of the new order to destroy the 
opportunities for men to act as they please, who would usurp 
the rights of their fellowmen. But to the vast majority of 
the people, the Golden Eule republic would bring new lib- 
erty; and we shall undertake to show that it would be wide 
and free enough to satisfy all. 

Is the scheme a feasible one? Yes: if the people want 
it. Nothing proposed here would rival our financial system 
in complexity, or be more difficult of operation than our 
Pension Bureau. We have men enough today in Washing- 
ton or fifty other cities, who could at once organize and carry 
on the entire distributive department of the social common- 
wealth. But I seem to hear a skeptical query: Does the 
writer himself really believe that all characters, the strongest 
with the weakest, will ever consent to be regimented so to- 
gether in labor, and be contented with their shares in a divi- 
dend ? And I answer that it may happen in the most natural 
order. The course and consequence of epoch-making legis- 
lation will always be resultants, in part, of unpredictable 
forces, but a share of influence will belong to the proposal 
and discussion of new measures, and, it may be, of some that 
are outlined here. 

Let me ask, in return, whether the most revolutionary 
features in this picture of a Golden Eule republic are not 
reasonable deductions from the principle of human brother- 
hood, and in keeping with the progress of humanity? If 
they are so, it may be reckoned offhand, by some of our 
critics, as a proof that they are impracticable. But is it so ? 
They are presented here as a means of securing the greatest 
good to the greatest number, and, supposing public senti- 
ment sustained them, I ask : Would not this be their effect ? 
There is, surely, no good sense in assuming that society never 



26 THE GOLDEN RULE REPUBLIC. 

can learn the practical wisdom of the Golden Eule. Society 
may be nearer to it than you think. 

There is no reason to assert, as many do, that mankind 
will not dwell in peace under socialism. The world has passed 
through greater transformations already, and this very cam- 
paign is partly won. As for consent, the essence of durable 
reform is that, if the people are prepared to command, the 
strongest must submit. The great surrender was foretokened 
when feudalism began to yield to the popular will ; and social 
changes must now become more rapid, until the relations of 
men shall find their equilibrium in obedience to the law of 
Christ. I do, for one, expect the ultimate adoption of the 
plans presented here, in substance : that is to say, the nation- 
alizing of industry and the dividend; because I do not see 
any alternative to them. And I expect that the first gener- 
ation brought up under the co-operative commonwealth will 
enjoy, in the new social order, a higher and better range of 
individual liberty than any nation ever possessed before. 



THE GOLDEN RULE REPUBLIC. 2? 



§ 4. THE WOEKING OF THE DIVIDEND 
ILLUSTEATED. 

The rich comfort possible for everybody in a Golden 
Eule republic is well illustrated by the supposed divi- 
dend in the foregoing pages. The basis for an actual divi- 
dend, however, must be quite different from the fluctuating 
scales of prices and wages current now. If all occupations 
are to share in it, and all workers of the same grade are to 
receive equal pay, the first thing necessary is to fix upon a 
uniform measure for all labor. This would be reached by 
establishing for every branch of industry its own labor-unit, 
or unit of production, by which terms we denote the prod- 
uct to be expected from a laborer of the lowest grade in one 
hour. In agriculture and similar pursuits, the soil and the 
seasons and other circumstances would have to be averaged 
along with the efficiency of the work. Changes of methods, 
new inventions, increasing intellectual and physical vigor 
among the workers, would raise these units; or, possibly, in 
evil times they might decline. A commission, perhaps the 
same that is employed to settle prices, would alter the labor- 
unit of any industry, keeping pace with the advance of its 
producing powers. If those immediately affected by such 
measures were not always pleased, the social body would sus- 
tain the advance from a natural desire to receive their pro- 
portion of the benefit. The perfect fairness of the policy 
would, in the end, satisfy all. In many pursuits, where 
there is no measurable material product, the labor-unit would 
mean the same as the time-check, simply that the laborer had 
done acceptable work for one hour. All the labor units are 
to be held of equal value: and upon that foundation of 
brotherly respect for honest labor, rather than regard for the 
things on which it is expended, the dividend would be de- 
termined. 

The problem of computing the general and the special 



28 THE GOLDEN RULE REPUBLIC. 

dividends would be rendered more intricate by those numer- 
ous industries whose products answer largely, if not solely, 
as raw material for use in further production. Such incom- 
plete products, like (for example) cotton, to be spun into 
yarn, then the yarn to be woven into cloth, and the cloth to 
be made into garments ready for the purchaser, all the pro- 
cesses waiting upon the final one to reach an application to 
human use, would be merely cumulative steps toward the 
desired result. No value could enter into the dividends 
except that of articles suitable to be distributed; but this 
value would include all the labor spent upon them from the 
beginning. The operation rests upon the fundamental idea 
of a dividing-up of goods. Consequently, the dividends would 
amount, practically, to sharing the completed products of 
the year among all w T ho have labored in any processes of pro- 
duction, or have been engaged in other service of the state. 

When the time arrives to prepare the dividends, the fed- 
eral bureaus employed in the undertaking would have to 
collect three classes of data: as to hours of labor performed 
in the different grades; as to units of production and quan- 
tity of products; and as to the amount required for pensions 
and minors and other regular or annual federal appropria- 
tions. The first of these would be ready in the reports from the 
local labor unions. The second would be given by the Bureau 
of Commerce, and it would exclude all exports, and include 
all imports as well as all products remaining from the year 
before and the cash in the Treasury. The third would be 
derived from the Treasury and Pension and Census Bureaus, 
and the acts of Congress. * 

The total product of the country to be divided must be 
reduced to units of production by dividing the product in 
each industry by the unit for that industry and adding to- 
gether the quotients. The computation then following would 
be made in terms of these units, instead of bushels or tons, 
and the resulting sums declared would be given in the same. 
After the total product is known, the minimum of annual 
production, per laborer, by any community in the nation, 
must be ascertained and multiplied by the entire number of 
laborers to give the sum total of the general dividend. The 
sums required for pensions and for minors and for all other 



THE GOLDEN RULE REPUBLIC. 39 

regular expenses of the year, and the amount called for by 
appropriations on account of the federal departments and 
the several states, must then be added together, and, the sum 
being taken from the balance left by the general dividend, 
the remainder will show the surplus available for the special 
dividend. 

Now the system of grades in labor would be put in ap- 
plication. There would be a fixed number of grades uniform 
in all occupations — let us say five — and a rising scale of 
shares would correspond: to the second grade, one share in 
the special dividend for each person ; to the third, two shares ; 
to the fourth, three shares; and to the fifth, four shares. 
The lowest grade receives no share, but must content itself 
with the general dividend. The state labor councils would 
report the number and names of those entitled to rank in 
each grade. Then the number of the fifth grade would have 
to be multiplied by four ; that of the fourth by three ; that of 
the third by two; the number of the second must be added 
to them, and the whole is a divisor by which, with the sur- 
plus for a dividend, the value of one share will be determined 
and the awards will easily be allotted to the several grades. 

There should be a money value assigned to the unit of 
production, based upon the current values of commodities in 
the markets of the world, and established by Congress for 
each annual dividend, upon recommendation of a commis- 
sion, perhaps the same that is entrusted with the schedule of 
prices. Then the circle would be complete. The laborer's 
time-check, bearing credit to him for hours of labor, would 
be exchangeable for a treasury warrant promising to pay him 
an equal number of units of production expressed in terms 
of money. He can apply this in purchase of anything he 
chooses. 



30 THE GOLDEN RULE REPUBLIC. 



THE PRICE COMMISSION. 

The natural price of any article is the equivalent of the 
labor spent in producing it. With one exception, all other 
elements, rent, interest, or profit, which enter into prices 
today, are due to the private ownership of capital, and under 
socialism they would be done away. The exception is the 
influence exerted over prices by the relation between supply 
and demand. 

The Price Commission is intended to answer this re- 
quirement. If, by wisdom or good fortune, the Bureau of 
Apportionment arranged for such a supply of a given article 
as met the demand precisely, the price would be the exact 
labor-cost. If, however, the supply of wheat, for instance, 
fell short of expectations, or the demand began to outrun the 
estimate derived from previous years, the commission would 
have power to raise prices as high as might be necessary. 
Sometimes a new invention, or a sudden veer of fashion, or 
an unlooked for abundance of a perishable crop, may lead 
to the sharp reduction of a price, or its entire temporary 
removal. In other cases of over-production the surplus would 
be stored until the people should call for it; and in the 
meantime such producers would have to select other occupa- 
tions where their service was more needed. Employment 
could always be found under a national administration of 
labor; and such a mistake would rarely be repeated. 

We have noted before that a great number of laborers, 
including generally those engaged in the work of distribution 
and the public service, can have no material unit of produc- 
tion, but are strictly consumers rather than producers. If 
this class is augmented, as by the formation of an army, 
prices must be raised, since the production of goods for each 
person is diminished. On the other hand, every labor-sav- 
ing invention is practically adding a reinforcement of pro- 



THE GOLDEN RULE REPUBLIC. 31 

ducers who are not consumers and must lower prices. Here 
is hope for indefinite advances in the enjoyment of ease and 
plenty by the fortunate citizens of the co-operative state. 

From the Thirteenth Annual Eeport of the Commissioner 
of Labor, Washington, 1898 (vol. I, pp. 14-24, etc.), it ap- 
pears that, by the introduction of machinery, the hours re- 
quired to produce a given number of boots and shoes of the 
same descriptions have been reduced from 9,300 to 880 ; of 
men's clothing, from 14,400 to 4,300; of hats, from 186 to 
40. These instances are rather below the average; the dif- 
ference in many lines of manufacture is far greater. In 
carriage materials, what occupied 25,834 hours to make by 
hand is now made in 1,640. And the career of invention 
shows no signs of approaching its climax. Under the new 
order, every iota of this gain would redound to the whole 
people, to be equitably distributed among them all. The 
uplift, in every corner of human hearts and lives, if the divi- 
dend were once established and the present rate of invention 
were maintained during another fifty years, would be pro- 
digious. 

The change has been least in agricultural and kindred 
pursuits, as was to be expected. Yet in twenty-two agri- 
cultural lines, the work of 9,750 hours has been brought into 
5,096; while in dairying the reduction has been from 465 
hours to 40. All this would result in readjustments of labor, 
upon principles as old as truth, but new to the business world. 
When society is guided by the Golden Rule, the first demand 
for labor will be to provide the people, small and great, with 
an abundance of the necessaries and the comforts of life. 
After that, and not till then, will attention be turned to 
mining, or manufacturing, or raising crops or stock, or any- 
thing else, for the object of a surplus to exchange for lux- 
uries. 

It would be the duty of the Bureau of Apportionment 
and the Price Commission to co-operate in resolving these 
problems; the one, by organizing the national labor before- 
hand; the other, by regulating the selling value of its prod- 
ucts. For this latter purpose the labor-units might be al- 
tered in various occupations as their labor became more valu- 
able ; but, most frequently, the commissioners would mark up 



32 THE GOLDEN RULE REPUBLIC. 

or down the price of any article in the public warehouses. 
Success in their difficult task would be reached with time and 
practice. The harm done by their errors would be merely a 
transient loss by needless excess or shortage of sundry arti- 
cles, and not a matter of business life or death to anybody. 

Let us make an illustrative example of the daily work- 
ings of the system, for the sake of clearness. Suppose that 
a resident of a country town is going to the city for domestic 
supplies. His labor credit for the past year was, we will say, 
1,750 hours out of 1,800, the labor year being 300 days of 
six hours each. Let us further assume that he belongs to the 
lowest grade, and that the dividend, this year, for one hour 
is thirty cents. Accordingly, he must contrive to live, for 
the present year, upon $525; although the situation is not a 
little improved by the circumstance that his wife and chil- 
dren also have their own allowances from the dividend, 
amounting to several hundred dollars. 

The city is three hours distant, but this does not matter, 
since passage and freight alike are free. He does not go 
for the sake of cheaper prices, because they are just the same 
at the store in his country village, but he wishes to examine 
and purchase from a larger stock. His most important er- 
rands are for a new suit, and some furniture for the roomier 
house to which he is to remove. He finds a handsome "Prince 
Albert" coat, with vest, and cassimere trousers. The labor 
cost of these at current wages, according to the United 
States Labor Eeport already quoted, is respectively, $2.62; 
$ .46 ; and $ .61 ; a total of $3.69. But this is only in the 
clothing factory. Let us add as, at least, a sufficiently high 
estimate for the labor involved from the rearing of the sheep 
to the finishing of the cloth, twice as much more. The suit 
would cost $11.07. Next, he buys a pair of nice calf shoes, 
single sole; the reported labor-cost of them $ .75. Add to 
this twice as much and we have $2.25; but here, we will 
suppose, fortune favors him ; a recent chemical discovery has 
reduced the labor of preparing the leather so greatly that 
the price of the shoes at cost is only $1.75. Now for a 
derby fur hat, $ .32 ; add $ .64 and it makes $ .96. 

Our householder looks for furniture, and selects a very 



THE GOLDEN RULE REPUBLIC. 33 

good lounge of oak, 69x23 inches, with round end and plush 
covering, whose labor-cost is $ .64, adding to which as be- 
fore we, get $1.92. A maple, cane-seat rocker and six chairs 
to match it cost in the factor}' respectively, $ .38 and $1, and 
their prices at the same rate would be $1.14 and $3. Among 
sundry commissions from the housewife he is to bring home 
a barrel of a certain brand of flour. From the same report 
we learn that the labor-cost of four bushels of wheat (which 
will make a barrel of flour) is $ .14%. Add twice as much 
more for the cost of milling and $ .12 for the barrel and the 
value is $ .56. 

But we have not yet reckoned with the Price Commis- 
sion. There is not enough of the best calf-skin to fur- 
nish all who would buy such shoes. The labor-cost of the 
finest and of the medium grades is too nearly equal. There 
must be a scramble for the choice, in which those who may 
be most active, or nearest to the spot, will win; or else, the 
only alternative, a price must be set upon them to check the 
demand. So the Commission has added, we will say, 100% to 
the price of the shoes, and also, for a like reason, to the price 
of coat and vest, and 50% to the other articles of clothing. 
The bill for the clothing, accordingly, is — Coat, $15.72 ; Vest, 
$2.76, Trousers, $2.75; Shoes, $3.50; Hat, $1.44; Total, 
$26.17. When prices were raised above cost, a door would be 
opened for private enterprise to step in and interfere by un- 
derselling the government. It would be a misdemeanor, 
however, to do so ; and there would be little trouble from such 
practices ; for offenses of that kind would, usually, be easy of 
detection, the contraband articles would be excluded from free 
transportation, and the government could, without loss to 
itself, undersell them at any point. The losers through such 
operations would be the nation, including the offenders, by 
the possible overstock and waste of the articles in question, 
and the corresponding shortage of others. 

The raw materials of the furniture are all equally abun- 
dant, and the prices, therefore, are simply the labor-cost. The 
furniture bill comes to $6.06. As for the flour, it has been a 
poor wheat crop, but with wider agricultural operations and a 
large reserve from the surplus of last year the Department has 
succeeded in providing nearly enough to meet the demand. 



34 THE GOLDEN RULE REPUBLIC. 

No one will suffer any lack; only people must eat more corn 
or oatmeal, rice and other foods, and the nation will, perhaps, 
export no wheat this season. The price of flour has been 
raised to $.90 a barrel, and of this particular brand to $1.00. 
Just as he is setting out for home, the citizen espies a notice 
to the public, that, owing to the rapid ripening of berries and 
consequent large influx to the city market, "strawberries will 
be given away today in any quantity desired." He hastens 
to secure what his family can use, and goes his way rejoicing. 
The citizen's expenditure, as we have followed him, amounts 
to $33.28. There is nothing included for transportation, or 
for expense of storage and clerk-hire, because all these are 
paid for under the heads of distribution and public service. 
Will any one say that the above outlay is extravagant for 
a man in such circumstances? He spends the earnings of 
nineteen days. But he can earn enough in three or four days 
to keep his family of six in flour for a whole year, and other 
things would be in proportion. Is the assumed wage of 30 
cents an hour excessive for a laborer of the lowest grade ? It 
is less than one-third of the estimated producing ability of 
the best workmen today; much less than the average ($670) 
of production in Massachusetts; and it should not be forgot- 
ten that the workers of the new nation would be all well-fed 
and well-trained men, animated by the knowledge that no em- 
ployer or middle-man could withdraw one penny of profit 
from their earnings, and that all their labor would be con- 
tinuously carried on under the latest and most efficient scien- 
tific processes, and the best expert direction. But we lay no 
stress upon any particular figures in this little, imaginary 
sketch. We claim only that, as an illustration of the ad- 
vantages of living in a Golden Eule republic, it is fair and 
within bounds. 

Am I wrong in surmising that many of those who may 
read these pages will be less concerned about the probable 
income of the lowest grade than about the possible income 
of the highest ? Their question will be : How much may we 
ourselves hope to enjoy? The maximum of incomes could 
hardly exceed the minimum by more than three or fourfold; 
certainly not, unless an inert and indolent rabble in some 



THE GOLDEN RULE REPUBLIC. 35 

state should heavily press down the general dividend. Nor 
could such a wide inequality endure except by treason to the 
governing principle of the republic. For, education and all 
the other elevating forces of a true, social commonwealth 
would be active continually, reducing these differences by 
leveling upward. Why should the prospect be unpleasing? 
Who is it that cannot find enjoyment unless he can see others 
possessed of less than himself? He is, at least, not a Chris- 
tian. Few indeed would accept that position — why then shrink 
from the thoughts of such equality? We search eagerly for 
the town full of nice people, or the best quarter of the city, 
that our home may be surrounded by congenial society. Would 
it be less agreeable if the whole nation was composed of nice 
people? But this is the equality to which socialism would 
bring us. Would not the same refining agencies, which have 
wrought so well upon you and me, produce as good results 
among the rest of the nation, if time and scope were given 
to them throughout the land? 

Eeader, take the whole system unfolded here, together, 
and say if the resources of happiness opened by it to every 
citizen would not content you. What object of importance 
would be left beyond your reach? But examine a little 
closer, and consider how very few of us ever have the pros- 
pect of attaining to as much enjoyment of life as the Golden 
Rule republic, through the institution of the dividend, prom- 
ises to all. It is the policy of intelligent self-interest, as, 
in the end, the unwavering Eight is sure to be. None 
would be happier in the new, true commonwealth than the 
most of those who were once our millionaires. 

If any part of the plan we are setting forth is not the 
best, let any man propose a better. Only, for the sake of 
human brotherhood and the love of Jesus Christ, let us aim 
at the Eight, and act. 



NOTE — Mr. Rufus W. Weeks, a mathematician and a friend of 
the author, has made the following formulation of a dividend and cur- 
rency scheme for the Co-operative Commonwealth, based upon the 



36 THE GOLDEN RULE REPUBLIC. 

plan that is outlined in this book. Differences in some particulars 
may be noted, but they are not essential, and illustrate the flexibil- 
ity of the system. 

FORMULA OF A DIVIDEND AND CURRENCY SCHEME FOR THE 
CO-OPERATIVE COMMONWEALTH. 

1. The currency would be entirely a token currency, either in 
paper, or partly paper and partly token coinage. The unit of the 
currency we will call the "hora" and this would be the only unit em- 
ployed in any transaction whatever between the Government and 
the people, and probably in all transactions between the people 
themselves. 

2. The "hora" equals the general dividend per hour; that is to 
say, the citizen who works six hours a day for the Government, for 
300 days in the year, will receive 1,800 "horas" as bis general divi- 
dend for the year. This is the equation of the "hora" used as pay 
by the Government. Its equation for the purpose of purchasing 
commodities is established in the following sections: 

3. We must assume a theoretical unit of time value for com- 
modities, that is to say, for tangible products which the Government 
sells to its citizens. Let us call this unit the "valora." It is not a 
unit which is named in any transaction; it is not a unit of price. 
The "hora" is the only unit of price, and the use of the "valora" is 
only as a device for reaching the value of the "hora." 

4. The total number of "valoras" corresponding to the produc- 
tion of commodities by the Government for sale in a year equals the 
entire number of hours devoted by all the citizens to work for the 
Government in the year, in producing such commodities as the Gov- 
ernment sells. (The hours spent in such occupations as teaching and 
other occupations in which nothing tangible and salable is produced 
are not counted in this particular calculation. The hours spent in 
making machinery, houses, plants, or improvements are also not 
counted.) 

5. Let us now consider the case of some one commodity, say, 
for example, wheat. Having ascertained the entire number of bush- 
els of wheat produced in the year and the entire number of hours' 
labor which have been put forth directly and indirectly to produce 
that wheat, we are to divide the latter number by the former, and 
the quotient will be the average value of wheat per bushel in "valo- 
ras." The Price Commission, taking this average value, would scale 
up and down and fix the values for the various grades of quality 
of wheat. 

By similar calculations the value of all other commodities will be 
fixed in "valoras." 

6. Now comes the question — what is to be fixed upon as the 
ratio between the "hora" and the "valora." 

For deciding this, we first make a list of the several states and 
find out for each state two numbers. The first of these numbers is 



THE GOLDEN RULE REPUBLIC. 37 

the total number of hours' work done in that state for the Govern- 
ment (including all kinds of work — those kinds which do not produce 
anything tangible, and those kinds which produce plant, as well as 
those kinds which produce commodities for sale). This number will 
be identical with the amount in "horas" of the general dividend paid 
to citizens of the given state. The second number required for each 
state is the total value in "valoras" of all the salable commodities 
produced in that state. 

Having these two numbers for each state, we are to divide the 
latter of the two numbers by the former, and we shall have vary- 
ing quotients for the several states. We look down the entire list 
of these quotients and take the lowest one of all the quotients ap- 
pearing in the list and fix upon this quotient as the ratio of the 
"hora" to the "valora." 

7. The Price Commission, having already ascertained the val- 
ues in the theoretical unit — the "valora" — of the entire list of com- 
modities of various qualities, now convert these values into prices 
in "horas," using for this purpose the year's fixed ratio of the "hora" 
to the "valora." 

8. The result will be that the aggregate of the price values of 
a year's commodities will be a much larger sum in "horas" than the 
aggregate of the year's general dividend for the. entire country; and 
the excess of the former sum over the latter will, with a sufficient 
deduction for contingencies., be available for special dividends. 



38 THE GOLDEN RULE REPUBLIC. 



§ 5. THE EIGHT TO A HOME. 

If the vital importance of anything to human life 
in childhood, manhood, or old age implies a natural, or, if 
you please, a divine right to it, then the citizen has a right 
to a home. It is true that legislatures cannot create a home. 
The spiritual forces which can do that must work from 
within; and the result may be found, with all its sweetness, 
in a city tenement house, or a prairie dug-out, or a gypsy 
wagon, or, in equally simple perfection, beneath the her- 
aldic ensigns of a ducal castle. But society has much to do 
with the making and unmaking of homes. Three elements 
may be named as peculiarly needful : affection, seclusion, and 
independence. 

As to the first, affection is not the child of law. Society 
cannot furnish it. And yet, where affection is wanting, so- 
ciety usually deserves a share of the blame. If families are 
compelled to live in mean or crowded abodes, meeting each 
other only for a few hurried or weary minutes because of 
the long hours of work, immersed in a hard, often bitter, 
and even brutal, struggle for subsistence: or if they dwell 
in unwholesome luxury, learning self-seeking from the cradle 
and growing up heartless in the midst of pride and pretence : 
in either case, and in many degrees between, affection suffers 
from an evil environment for which society is responsible. 
As for seclusion, it is proof of the immortal quality in the 
home, that it can maintain itself in truth and happiness, 
as, not infrequently, it does, where two families live together. 
For, it is essential to the perfection of the home that the 
family shall be one circle, sufficient unto itself. This is the 
natural law of the family as the primal cell, out of which 
all social development must proceed. Nor is it of less im- 
portance that the home should be independent, the inmates 
conscious that they are safe from interference in their do- 



THE GOLDEN RULE REPUBLIC. 39 

mestic stronghold. Seclusion and independence are within 
the province of society to insure. 

The grand requisite, a comfortable house, must be pro- 
vided by the commonwealth. Every foot of ground will be 
public property, and no alienation will be possible by terms 
of lease or other legal devices. The state, or county, or city 
— a community large enough to assume the task — would sup- 
ply a house for every household of its citizens. Single per- 
sons and broken families must be arranged for according to 
their wants and wishes. Use would be made of existing build- 
ings to begin with, wherever they were up to the standard 
established by the state. Priority of application would give 
precedence in choosing a dwelling-place ; but in a large popu- 
lation the changes would be numerous, and a young couple 
setting out in life might be suited as readily as ever. Any 
one could move as often as he desired. Some persons would 
select a flat rather than a separate house with its enclosure; 
some would prefer to live in a city rather than in the coun- 
try; others would have opposite tastes; all must be accom- 
modated, if their wishes are reconcilable with the general 
health and welfare. 

Building would go on constantly, both to meet the 
growth of population and because, as public resources in- 
creased, the poorer houses would be improved or replaced by 
better ones. Whole wards in the cities would be rebuilt with- 
out delay. There seems no doubt that free transportation, 
joined with other conditions of the new order, would greatly 
diminish the call for lofty office buildings and solid blocks 
of business houses or dwellings. The city would expand and 
become open, a true "rus in urbe"; and the country would 
be rearranged, its lonely farmhouses brought together into 
pleasant neighborhoods, somewhat after the manner suggested 
by Waring for a farm village in an old Ehode Island town. 
(Village Improvements, p. 132.) Perhaps the tide of popu- 
lation would set from the cities back to the country again; 
at any rate, the suburban regions would extend outward very 
much farther than now. 

New edifices would be erected in accordance with the 
wishes of those for whose use they were designed. The range 



40 THE GOLDEN RULE REPUBLIC. 

of expense for buildings for private purposes, from highest 
to lowest, would be less than now : but there might be greater 
variety and better taste, and the effect might be far more 
beautiful. The tendency would be to build for greater per- 
manence than is common under private enterprise; and ulti- 
mately, as happens in long-settled countries, there would be 
fewer new erections, but the home-seeker would find his rest 
in an ancient house, rich in traditions and quaint with traces 
of former generations of inhabitants. Once established, no 
malice nor envy could disturb him. The place might re- 
main in the family until cherished like a Virginia manor 
house or a New England homestead. 

The commonwealth being sole proprietor of real estate, 
all improvements would be made at public cost, excepting 
trifling repairs, such as are now borne by a tenant. The 
limits of such cost would be fixed by ordinances, and the im- 
provements, which might be planned by the occupant, would 
have to pass the approval of the proper board of public works. 
A certain degree of neatness and care about the place may 
be exacted under public ownership, although the public, being 
the majority, will not be apt to go too far in laying rules 
upon itself. There would be no payment of rent, strictly 
speaking, in the Golden Eule republic, but premiums, paya- 
ble annually, would have to be assigned to the choice of the 
more desirable residences, high enough to equalize the demand. 
If the annual incomes of citizens were nearly equal and all 
moderate, and all houses were built for the utmost comfort, 
a small premium would answer. Opposite conditions might 
occur, at lighthouses or other points where some one is 
needed, but where few would volunteer to reside. In such 
a case, society would, in fairness, provide special advantages 
to balance the citizen's account. 

Many interesting questions arise concerning the manage- 
ment of the home. It would not be practicable to supply 
light and heat and water, all three, everywhere, without trou- 
ble or expense to the individual, at least until population be- 
comes much more dense than it is at present. Neither would 
it be practicable for every family to share in the facilities 
of co-operative housekeeping. Other means must be em- 



THE GOLDEN RULE REPUBLIC. 41 

ployed to render the isolated homes attractive. But almost 
any one may be surprised to discover how few locations there 
are that cannot be reached by these social helping hands. 
Nor can such vast undertakings be achieved in a single year. 
Physical obstacles would be too great; and, moreover, im- 
mense as the annual resources of the social commonwealth 
may be, it will be necessary to "cut the coat to the measure 
of the cloth," having in view the manifold other forms of 
public service, more than we can attempt to enumerate, which, 
in due time, the citizens are freely to enjoy. 

As for co-operation in different departments of house- 
keeping, in the laundry work, the house-cleaning, the cook- 
ing, the sewing, perhaps the dairy and the garden and the 
stable, it would naturally be a matter for individual prefer- 
ence and local organization; although the state might give 
essential aid in various ways. Union upon such intimate 
terms requires more uniformity in manner of living than is 
always to be found : and besides, women are not as much ac- 
customed to co-operation and, consequently, not as well pre- 
pared for it, as men. People will have to learn by experi- 
ments what they want, and new habit's must become second 
nature, which is the chief difficulty of all; but the endless 
round of household labor must and will be radically light- 
ened. 

There are not a few persons whose sympathies with the 
progress of socialism would turn upon the question of do- 
mestic service. The co-operative economies just referred to 
may be delayed beyond other changes of greater magnitude, 
because of pride and passions which may unavoidably be 
kindled. A vague feeling of subserviency still hangs around 
such work. If the association, however, was under munici- 
pal control, these domestic employments, even the sweeping 
and cleaning, might easily become as unobjectionable as the 
care of a public office. 

Another class of work, of similar character, but more 
delicate to deal with, is what may be termed social service. 
So long as people find pleasure in social functions, there 
must be a considerable number of men and women engaged, 
not as guests and participants, but working for the enjoy- 
ment of the company. Under socialism, the servants on one 



42 THE GOLDEN RULE REPUBLIC. 

occasion would be, as likely as not, the guests at another 
equally distinguished event, and vice versa. It is possible 
that the community might solve the problem by assigning 
positions as waiters and attendants, among other occupations, 
somewhat as the churches appoint ushers for the season. It 
may be, the problem will solve itself, as it does in the less 
elaborate, but not less intelligent or happy social life of our 
own less wealthy classes. If socialism prevails, the moral 
lesson will be engraved upon every youthful mind that mu- 
tual service is mutual honor. 

There is a third class of work, that is similar, and yet 
is fundamentally different. It is such personal attendance 
as is expected from a coachman, a valet, a lady's maid, a 
table waiter in a family: and it must be owned that the 
Golden Eule republic would not contemplate anything of 
the sort. Such accepted, habitual relations of one person to 
another person are menial service in the strict sense of the 
word. They may have a place in army camps, where the 
Golden Eule is a stranger, but if they are sanctioned in any 
situation, the instance must plead for itself. There may be 
no prohibition of such things ; but there will be no motive for 
any one to hold a menial position. Only a small minority 
have personal attendants now, and no one possessed of health 
requires them. 

They are needed, however, in time of sickness ; for which, 
as well as against which, the social commonwealth would pro- 
vide more perfectly than has been practicable hitherto. A 
community intelligent enough to adopt the new order would 
give thorough attention to hygiene. All towns would have 
hospitals of the modern kind, free, within the widest, rea- 
sonable limits, to the citizens, and more comfortable for a 
sick man than his own home. Physicians would be employed 
by the community, in such numbers, and of such schools of 
medicine as the people might determine; while practitioners 
not so classified might be permitted at their own charges, as 
they are now, subject only to the statutes for the public 
safety. There would everywhere be nurses, trained for their 
calling, though restricted in number, like all other occupa- 
tions and professions, by the ascertained requirements of the 
entire commonwealth. The citizen should be enabled to take 



THE GOLDEN 11ULE REPUBLIC. 43 

care of his health ; and he should lose by the loss of it nothing 
that his fellow citizens can supply. 

Questions arising as to marriage and divorce may be 
touched upon here, as topics vital to the home. The age of 
marriage would be more uniform than it is in America under 
the pressure of competition. Security of support would lead 
to a healthful reform in this particular. Not quite so many 
boys and girls would hurry into matrimony; and not nearly 
so many men and women would live on into old bachelors 
and spinsters before marrying; because a manhood share of 
the general dividend would await each one at the age, say, 
of twenty-one, and not till then, while from that point on- 
ward a marriage would involve the savings incident to the 
joining of two separate incomes. 

But would not the bond of wedlock be weakened by such 
entire independence of the parties? The husband would no 
longer feel himself to be the bread-winner for the household : 
the wife no longer need hesitate to throw off her obligations 
for fear of resulting poverty for herself or her children. The 
breaking up of families goes on at an increasing rate. Would 
the form of socialism presented here augment the calamity? 

If it were likely to prove so, we might well pause in 
our scheming, for the springs of the world's life are in the 
purity and strength of family ties. I think the effects appre- 
hended may appear for a time in places where considerations 
of money have kept husbands and wives together. It is 
rational to assume, however, that the free, unfettered move- 
ment of natural affection and duty is best in the end; and 
the working of the new order would, in this respect, be re- 
medial. It could not banish evil passions from the land, 
but it would remove almost or quite the main fulcrum by 
which they exert their baleful power. The marriage connec- 
tion might be severed with less pecuniary difficulties, but it 
would become more disinterested and surer of permanence 
from the beginning. It seems probable that, instead of dis- 
aster, a beneficent change will come, and all human relations 
will be purified, refined and elevated in the day when men 
and women choose each other in wedlock only under the im- 
pulse of mutual love. The adoption of the dividend would 



44 THE CJOLDEN RULE REPUBLIC. 

go far to liberate them from constraint by any other motives. 
Homes would be more securely founded: divorces would be 
less frequent. 

Legislation with regard to marriage and divorce would 
not necessarily be affected by socialism. The absolute equal- 
ity and independence of all citizens, irrespective of sex, would 
doubtless have an influence both in shaping the laws and in 
guiding the courts; but this is all. The conditions of the 
momentous problem are ever varying with the level of moral 
character among the people, and the current of public senti- 
ment upon the subject, and, especially, with the rise or de- 
cline of religious faith and principle. But there is one realm 
untouched by change, and that is the distinctive natures and 
consequent relations of man and woman. The line that runs 
through all the ranks of animate being cannot be shifted or 
effaced by human hands. Let just and equal rights be estab- 
lished for all mankind, alike possessors of the human soul, 
to which differences of sex or of race pertain but as acci- 
dents and not as essence, and still, the same as ever only 
more freely, will the male and the female choose by native 
impulse the same relations of leader and follower, of pro- 
tection and trust, of head and helpmeet, yet always side by 
side, with mutual counsel and mutual concession, in which 
they each find their pleasure and perfect harmony. Excep- 
tions and inversions in this case emphatically prove the rule. 
Here, as everywhere, it is safe to build upon the foundations 
divinely laid in nature and the law of love. 

Affection, seclusion and independence are the essentials 
we named for the maintenance of a home. It is plain that 
the new social order would be favorable to the growth of the 
best affections. Peace is more natural to them than strife, and 
the difference between socialism and competition in that re- 
spect is one that goes down to the foundations. The warm- 
est, truest hearts are rarely nurtured at the extremes of the 
social scale; far oftener in the healthful regions where in- 
dustry is joined with competence. It is the peculiar mis- 
sion of socialism to put an end to these extremes, of opulence 
on the one side and of penury on the other. If there is any 
value in general education for moral character as well as men- 



THE GOLDEN RULE REPUBLIC. 45 

tal training, any field in the public schools for shaping noble 
ideals and settling the principles of purity, fidelity, courtesy, 
self-control firmly in youthful hearts, the larger opportuni- 
ties afforded by the Golden Eule republic must be effective 
in the making of happy homes. 

There is a mistaken impression abroad that national 
organization of labor, together with the dividend, would some- 
how force people into involuntary and unwelcome compan- 
ionship more than we suffer now under competition. It is 
a mistake as to all but the present leisured class, and true 
for them only so far as they dislike to associate with others 
in the labor, necessary to earn their own living. Even these 
associations of labor would be more flexible than they are 
today; while the completeness of the home circle within itself 
and the freedom of selection in society would be as perfect 
among the commonest laborers as it is now among the rich. 

There may, doubtless, be many who will need time to 
acquire the relish of familiarity with their widening range 
of thought and action: perhaps, in some districts, a whole 
generation may be none too much. But the natures must be 
strangely rude that would not at once appreciate the security 
of a socialist citizen, and especially his release from the mill- 
stone of a mortgage round his neck, from the tributes of 
profits paid to landlords and middlemen, from the advanc- 
ing fears of enforced idleness and destitution that clouded 
his latter years, in one word, the independence and safety 
of his home. Here and there a selfish soul might repine for 
the exclusive privileges of past days, but the vast majority 
would rejoice in a deliverance like that of Israel out of Egypt. 



46 THE GOLDEN RULE REPUBLIC. 



§ 6. OP THE EFFECT OF SOCIALISM UPON THE 
WOKLD OF WEALTH AND LUXUKY. 

It takes one's breath away to think of the changes 
which socialism, of the type we have been describing, would 
make in the world of wealth and luxury. There are, in al- 
most any city, residences more expensive than the common- 
wealth would build, and which, perhaps, no citizen without 
other income than the dividend would choose to occupy. In 
our principal cities, there are streets and squares full of such 
mansions, rising to the very height of splendor ; and wherever 
the fairest sites are found among the hills, or by lake or 
ocean, you find the "cottages" of the rich, too spacious and 
elegant for private purses under the Golden Eule. What 
will be done with all these palaces? 

What is to become of the superb furnishings, and the 
delicate arts that produce them? Go from story to story in 
Tiffany's great building in New York. You are bewildered 
by the multitude of beautiful, costly things, no small share 
of them wholly void of use, except to please the eye and dis- 
play wealth. Somebody's fancy designed, somebody's skill 
executed, every article. It seems incredible that all should 
find purchasers, yet somebody buys them. The scale of liv- 
ing for which those things are made furnishes an ideal, in 
its way, for the poor to read of and talk about, and dream 
of and envy. What would socialism do about these luxuries? 
Would it, after all, be as well to live in a world without such 
superfluities ? 

What would become of the diamond market in a coun- 
try where no person could afford to spend a few thousand 
dollars for a precious stone? How could the world of fash- 
ion survive without means enough in any single hand to 
support its lovely creations and masterpieces? The stern 
limits of the dividend would seem to exclude even the pos- 



THE GOLDEN RULE REPUBLIC. 47 

sibility of a costly toilet; one of the matters which can 
hardly be arranged for by co-operation. Would not an arid 
waste succeed to those eagerly read columns of the papers 
where the princesses of society, gorgeously arra}^ed, move be- 
fore us through an endless variety of brilliant functions? 
What would become of "society"? Would the poor them- 
selves be well satisfied to have no "upper classes" with all 
their magnificence? 

Let us not underestimate the difficulty here. It is sen- 
timental, and therefore it is serious; for people are ruled 
by their feelings. The adjustment of imaginations and am- 
bitions to an order so unprecedented as socialism is a mighty 
task. Yet, if the Golden Eule reform is pressed on success- 
fully, as new ideals are learned and new habits are acquired, 
old prejudices will melt away. 

How much of substantial basis would there be for the 
objection? If an end were put to the private amassing of 
wealth, of course there would be no individual able to com- 
mand such luxuries, notwithstanding the important fact that 
profit would be eliminated from prices. But there would 
still be a demand for them, it may be as great as now, pos- 
sibly greater. The public may want all of them that are 
worth having. Every community, local or general, small or 
great, would possess a vital interest for every person in it 
such as hitherto was unknown. The multiplied public activi- 
ties would call for buildings multiplied as many times over, 
and civic pride and taste would take delight in their beauty 
and adornment's. The grandest palaces would be none too 
fine to remodel into schools, or hospitals, or offices of admin- 
istration, or art-galleries, or libraries, or theatres, or concert 
halls, or forums, or hotels, or storehouses and manufactories 
for artistic products, or many another use for the common 
good. There is a wide domain of public service for the 
common social enjoyment, which, under socialism, would ap- 
propriate many of the largest and finest private houses, turn- 
ing them into public salons, and baths after the style of an- 
cient Eome. While the salaries of the highest magistrates in 
the commonwealth would be simply the dividend, a feeling 
of patriotic pride would dictate that their official residences 
shall be suited to the stately gatherings to be held in them. 



48 THE GOLDEN RULE REPUBLIC. 

and maintained at public cost according to the dignity of 
a prosperous nation. In such edifices as all these, a wealth 
of splendid furniture, works of art and articles of virtu, 
would have fitting place. Many buildings would be required 
by private associations, clubs, guilds, churches and religious 
societies, and these also would accumulate their treasures. 
Such impersonal ownership will appear to many of us a 
very insipid, unsatisfying kind of possession, compared with 
our exclusive control and pride. But it did not seem so to 
the citizens of Athens in her glory. 

What is the importance of the pomp and circumstance 
of life? It is wholly comparative. There was not a house 
in Xew England one hundred years ago that would compare in 
costliness with the dwellings of our millionaires; but the 
standard of living in those homes, out of which came the most 
illustrious of American authors, poets, statesmen, reformers, 
has never been surpassed. It was rich in comfort, refined 
in spirit, and had a sufficiency of luxuries too. The domestic 
life of every family in the Golden Eule republic might, with 
the help of the free public service, be as full of resources for 
• enjoyment and culture as that which gave to America Sumner 
and Longfellow, Lowell and Emerson. We may not grieve 
overmuch if the world loses the gilded pinnacles of social 
fortune which dazzle our eyes today and yet were undreamed 
of by so many of the happiest and noblest and most inspired 
of men, so long as the riches of intellect and taste and soul 
and all the comforts of modern invention are imparted to 
the masses of mankind. Better lose a thousand palaces, if 
we may win a million homes. 

But the loss of palaces would be felt, by those accus- 
tomed to a lavish use of money, less keenly than the want 
of means to gratify personal desires, for dress, or the table, 
or similar indulgences; and for this there seems to be no 
remedy. The costumes of a society belle for a single season 
would be quite out of reach for any woman under socialism : 
jewel caskets would shine, perforce, very modestly by the 
side of some we know of. There would be public festivals 
and private banquets, and epicures might unite to regale 
themselves, but no man could keep on doing so, or support 
his own cellar of rare wines as some do now. And there is 



THE GOLDEN RULE REPUBLIC. 49 

no sort of restriction that will occasion more intense antagon- 
ism and outcry than this. 

But how many would be affected; and how much would 
it really signify? The world went on, though the youths 
of Sybaris died and were forgotten. Beauty of attire mubt 
be secured (and not alone for women, either) but it does 
not depend principally upon cost, and even that point would 
be compassed by a score of ingenious devices. The women 
of the social commonwealth would have ample means to 
dress with true artistic taste; and queenly robes would be 
numerous enough, at least, to cultivate the ideal. And what 
more do they now? Perhaps the finest garments would be 
designed, as they have been in other ages, to be of enduring 
quality and cherished for generations, so that an old family 
might come to pride itself on its store of such priceless heir- 
looms, valued as joys forever. 



50 THE GOLDEN RULE REPUBLIC. 



§ 7. THE EIGHT TO PEOPEETY. 

The distinction between "mine" and "thine" traces 
back to the earliest beginnings of human society. The first 
pair of brothers are represented in Genesis as each making an 
offering of what belonged to him. The behavior of any 
group of little children will furnish proof that the desire 
for owning things, if not original in our nature, is rooted now 
so deeply that it must be so regarded. People do not want to 
hold all things in common, and the Golden Eule does not 
require it. The famous passage in Acts (4:32) does not 
mean that among these Christian disciples articles of per- 
sonal property were picked up and appropriated by any one 
who happened to find them. There is enough in the world 
to enable every member of the human family to own a suffi- 
cient portion for his highest happiness and welfare as a Man. 

The whole object of socialism is to make the weaker 
members of the family secure of a chance to enjoy their 
rightful portion. The grand merit of the dividend is that 
it harmonizes two things which we all agree ought to come 
together, but which at present so often are antipodal — 
equity and self-interest: since, by conferring upon the ma- 
jority a better living than they could otherwise hope to 
obtain, it would cause their self-interest to coincide with the 
just rights and welfare of all. No one would lose, except the 
minority of stronger men, who are naturally able to take 
more than their share. So long as a majority of people 
anywhere imagine that they belong to this minority and are 
ready to venture upon the conceit, as youth is prone to do, 
that community is not yet prepared in mind to live by the 
Golden Eule. But events are rapidly preparing us all. 

The social commonwealth would never impose a legal 
limit upon the amount of property that a citizen might pos- 



THE GOLDEN RULE REPUBLIC. 51 

sess. There is a natural inequality that cannot be abolished. 
The man who is endowed with the genius for making money, 
as some have it, will invent the ways of fulfilling his mis- 
sion if none existed or were thought of before. Gifts of 
intellect and command like these bear with them the most 
exalted possibilities of unselfish service for the general good. 
In every department of the administration they would be 
needed. Yet, if such men were determined to be selfish, 
society, under the new order, would let them alone. 

The social commonwealth would undertake to divide the 
whole product of each year by equitable rule among the 
producers according to the time they have labored, and hav- 
ing accomplished this it would concern itself no farther. 
Some individuals would waste their dividend, and some others 
might take advantage of them to their own profit, but the 
commonwealth would leave such things to right themselves 
with the help of another year's income. It is interesting to 
recall that the Mosaic code contains a somewhat similar pro- 
vision. The greatest of pre-Christian lawgivers ordained that 
in the year of jubilee — once in every fifty years — every He- 
brew who, by growing poverty, had been compelled to sell 
his land should return to his ancestral possessions, at liberty 
to start again. (Lev. 25: see also Deut. 15). The social 
commonwealth would not extinguish debt, but every year it 
would impart a fresh opportunity of self-help to the debtor. 
Some hard lessons of privation might be learned, even under 
socialism, but privation never could descend to utter want, 
nor ever reach to the bitterness of despair. 

There must be inequalities of property, even in the 
Golden Rule republic; but no great fortunes could be accu- 
mulated, because the materials for them would be wanting. 
No one could make himself rich out of real estate, or mines, 
or forests, because public ownership and use of all such 
things would be complete. No private financial operations 
in railroads or other public utilities would be possible, for 
the like reason. Commerce and fisheries would be conducted 
by the commonwealth and developed with regard to the pub- 
lic interests in time of peace and security in time of war. 
There would be no more merchant princes, when the distri- 
bution of all products was managed by the public hand. 



52 THE GOLDEN RULE REPUBLIC. 

Whether any kind of agriculture, or manufacturing, or other 
production should be left to individuals would be determined 
by the general voice; but if any business was of sufficient 
consequence, it would certainly be taken over by the com- 
munity. No more fortunes would arise from patent rights, 
for the reward of an inventor would no longer be a monopoly 
of profit from his inventions. A different stimulus for in- 
ventive genius would be sought. And if any one discovered 
a new path to fortune, the public would take possession of 
it directly, with just compensation for the time and outlay 
it had cost him and with such honors as he deserved. 

In objection to all this, the conservative urges, as a 
lesson from experience, that "the gravest dangers to nations 
have always resulted from concentrating vast and unneces- 
sary powers and treasures in the government. If all the 
agencies for acquiring wealth were collected at one point, 
the prize of its control would be too great for human virtue. 
Efforts would be unceasing, by intrigue or by violence, to 
work the fingers of private greed into that mine of mines/' 
"In place of the hated capitalist/' so the conservative de- 
clares, "we should only have the still more hateful politi- 
cian. Suppose an Aaron Burr or a Eichard Croker had the 
key to such a treasury; who can find a parallel for the cor- 
ruption that would surely follow? If the genius for money- 
making, driven from other fields, were to bend its whole 
energies upon politics; if common men should learn to hope 
for desirable employment mainly through political 'pulls'; 
the last state of inequality of fortune in the country would 
be worse than the first." 

This objection deserves to be considered well, because 
of the weight it evidently has with so many practical and 
even eminent men. Let us look at it attentively. The first 
fallacy is in the lesson drawn from history. There never 
has been a fair trial of a thoroughly popular government; 
but the more or less complete experiments in that direction 
which have been made, as in the forest cantons of Switzer- 
land and the townships of New England, are all in its favor. 
No communities have enjoyed more of the best elements of 
contented prosperity. The "fierce democracies" of ancient 



THE GOLDEN RULE REPUBLIC. 53 

Greece were not such. They were bodies of slave-holders, 
who had leisure to carry on wars abroad and factions at home, 
because their slaves were providing for their daily needs. 
The laborers, whose interests lie always in peace, had not a 
word in public affairs. There was, indeed, little chance of 
freedom for them during those interminable, miserable ages 
when war was the highest occupation of mankind. Even in 
the secluded Swiss cantons freedom had no fair opportu- 
nity. Small in territory and population, and encompassed 
by covetous tyrants, they were under such hard necessity 
of warlike discipline that the arts of peace and liberal gov- 
ernment made but imperfect advances among them. Yet it 
was the happiness and just pride they felt in their liberties 
that nerved them to a world-renowned heroism in their de- 
fense. jSTo more were the free cities and republics of Europe 
examples of true, popular self-government. Their councils 
were made up of members of trade-unions and social classes. 
We may never see an end of cliques and parties, but our very 
aim should be to forefend against introducing them into the 
constitution of the state. 

A government may be conceived of as existing "Dei 
gratia," or, at any rate, as independent of a portion, at least, 
of those who are subject to its authority; which, in such 
cases, proceeds from the highest point downward through 
every grade, but stops short of the common people. This is 
the pervading idea in continental Europe, lingering even in 
France so strongly as to imperil the young republic. Or, 
another view may be taken. Government may be regarded 
as representative : that is, composed of men who have been 
chosen to govern according to their own judgment and will, 
restricted usually by some constitution or other bonds, writ- 
ten or unwritten, but to a greater or less extent independent 
of the men who elected them. They have not enough respect 
for the will of the people to hinder them from doing some 
things contrary to the popular sentiment or the public inter- 
est. This is the theory of government in England and 
America, and it is the one which prevails with the authors 
of this objection to socialism. Our own courts have sus- 
tained this view repeatedly, by ruling that legislatures, upon 
whom the task of deciding certain questions has been laid, 



54 THE GOLDEN RULE REPUBLIC. 

may not avoid a dilemma or escape an unpleasant duty by 
referring a measure back to the people. They must stand 
up to their work and meet the responsibility. We read in 
studies of American politics, and often it is accompanied 
with regret, that power is tending constantly, more and more, 
to settle into the hands of the masses. The diversion of the 
Electoral College from its original purpose is a conspicuous 
example. To me, this tendency appears as hopeful as it is 
inevitable, for it is an index of consciously increasing intel- 
ligence among the masses. The government cannot continue 
half representative and half democratic ; but when, at length, 
the people actually control every part of their own inter- 
ests, not merely indirectly and at intervals, but directly and 
whenever they please, there will be rest. 

In a true democratic government all authority would 
proceed, from its source in the whole body of the people, 
upward to the highest point, and responsibility would never 
be separated from that source. The courts would have to 
alter their ruling. Legislators would be trusted and hon- 
ored as long as they gave satisfaction to the public, but their 
work would always be subject to the initiative and the refer- 
endum. Every official elected by the people would be ac- 
countable to them at any moment, and the recall would 
enforce their authority. Other officers and employees would 
be subject to conditions of appointment and service open 
alike to every citizen; and favoritism would be within easy 
reach of punishment by the same tribunal, yet nothing hastily, 
but under the deliberation of lawful procedure and the dig- 
nity which belongs to the administration of justice. And 
mark the prediction — the day that sees our government com- 
pletely identified with our people will see the beginning of 
the end of that poisonous disrespect for law which so per- 
vades our land, the spirit of lynching. 

?fow, where is the inducement for amassing a fortune 
by politics under this system? So far from a concentration 
of power or treasures in the government, it would be more 
correct to say that power and treasures would be diffused 
among the people. So far from clothing officials with un- 
necessary powers, the brief terms of independent authority 
which they now enjoy, and too often misuse, would be with- 



THE GOLDEN RULE REPUBLIC. DO 

drawn from them. So far from extending the spoils system 
or the "pull," every position, high or low, whether in produc- 
tion or administration, that is not elective would be held 
upon proofs of merit free alike to all: exceptions, of course, 
being made of positions like that of a private secretary, which 
are naturally dependent upon personal choice. And in these 
pledges of better things there is answer to still another fal- 
lacy contained in the objection to the new order we have been 
considering, namely, joining the idea of an era of socialism 
with the crimes that are now rendering competition intolera- 
ble, while ignoring the fact that socialism alone proposes to 
furnish a remedy for these ills. Socialism promises to take 
all the money out of politics and put an end to the occupa- 
tion of the Platts and the Crokers. 



But if the materials of wealth above enumerated, and 
all others that are dangerous, are effectually placed beyond 
the touch of private hands, what does the assurance amount 
to, that every citizen shall have full possession and enjoy- 
ment of his own sole property? How much could he pos- 
sess? Evidently, the income of all alike would be measured 
by the national annual dividends. If anyone preferred to 
turn a portion of his dividend warrants into money, instead 
of spending them, he could lay it aside to assist him in some 
future expenses, or heap it up in a miser's hoard. Here is 
a limited, though indefinite, possibility opened for accumu- 
lation; but there would be very little incentive to it in the 
midst of universal security and increasing comfort. The 
commonwealth would pay no heed to such sporadic cases of 
avarice. 

Nor would there be need — probably, there never wouid 
be any — of an income tax or an inheritance tax. The strange, 
deep-seated regard for the will of the dead, which in all 
ages has influenced men to obey the slightest utterance left 
by one who is past all power of enforcing his wishes, would 
not be altered by the advent of socialism. Gifts and be- 
quests of personal effects and money would be as common 
as they are now, and would occasion inequalities in wealth; 
but the forces of dispersion would be at work freely and the 



56 THE GOLDEN RULE REPUBLIC. 

result need not be feared. No overshadowing fortune would 
be made in such ways. 

There is another class of properties, whose production 
and value cannot be calculated by the ordinary rules of sup- 
ply and demand, and which yet are among the most precious, 
the works of the intellect in literature and art. In our sec- 
tion upon Honor we must treat of these, but the same tal- 
ents might confer important benefits upon the public in a 
wider sphere by adding the impress of beauty to common 
things, great or small. Works of genius are not to be had 
upon order, nor are labor unions of poets practicable; al- 
though the highest achievements of genius are in no degree 
too noble for the public service. If executed during the hours 
of labor, whatever the commercial value of such works might 
be, it would go to swell the sum of production for the year. 
No more copyright than patent right would obtain in the 
Golden Eule republic. Neither scientist, artist, nor poet will 
ask for more than a citizen's maintenance, if real apprecia- 
tion and honor may be accorded to him. But there may be 
pecuniary rewards as well as honors bestowed for distin- 
guished services to the state. 

An enormous amount of property now consisting of 
credits, in accounts, notes and bonds, deposits, insurances 
and the like, and of claims created by statute, such as fran- 
chises, and stocks of corporations and patents and copyrights, 
would almost wholly disappear under socialism. Legal meaus 
would not be wanting to enforce the fulfillment of obliga- 
tions; but it would be a matter of little* advantage and some 
difficulty for any person in the new commonwealth to run 
far into debt; while as for what we have termed claims, the 
sources of such properties would be quite superseded. What 
a vacancy would be effected at a stroke in the business world ! 
The art of financiering, with all the marvelous mechanism 
of trade, which has been developed through a thousand years, 
would reduce to comparatively few and simple elements. Spec- 
ulation would be heavily fettered by the absence of any large 
sums of money available for such purposes. There would be 
no more bull or bear operators, no more Napoleons of Wall 
Street, because Wall Street itself would have gone the way 
of the Venetian private route to Cathay and the Indies. 



THE GOLDEN RULE REPUBLIC. 57 

Yet there would not be one pennyworth the less of value for 
men's use, but rather the choked-up channels of production 
and distribution would be opened wide. 

In a hundred different directions, the new social organi- 
zation would reveal the wisdom of its righteousness, and in 
none more strikingly than in its cooling influence upon the 
feverish passion for wealth. It would lay the ax to the root 
of the tree of ambition for great fortunes. Eich men are 
not often miserly. The charm of money for them, as for 
us all, is in its magic power over other men. It has no other 
power. If the contents of the world are at the command 
of wealth, it is because men everywhere are ready to sur- 
render them for money. But do you think that our capi- 
talists are finding their chief satisfaction in owning lands 
and buildings and floating palaces and galleries of art, and 
in living like princes? Not so; it is the sense of power over 
men, far more than pleasure in the possession of material 
things, that holds them to the treadmill of business. Let 
every man be made independent and secure, as under social- 
ism every man would be, and the authority of the million- 
aire, the most cherished compensation for the toil and care 
and contention and envy and hardening of the heart that he 
has suffered, will vanish forever. No fascination, as of a 
serpent, would longer compel the multitudes to bow down 
together before one sordid idol, Mammon. Every man would 
then stand firmly on his own feet, free to shape his ideals 
according to the bent of his own nature ; and instead of that 
low, mechanical monotony foretold by advocates of compe- 
tition, we shall see the richly varied development of character 
that springs from personal freedom. 



58 THE GOLDEN RULE REPUBLIC. 



§ 8. OP INTEKEST. 

Laws against the taking of interest are of little 
avail. If some men have money and others are willing to 
pay for the use of it, the transaction being entirely free, 
how can they be prevented? In the co-operative common- 
wealth, the practice of usury or interest would become obso- 
lete, but, if I judge rightly, not through the force of re- 
strictive legislation. The Golden Eule republic would deal 
with this, as with many another institution of the competitive 
era, bringing it quietly to the ground by undermining its 
supports. The money lender would no longer be wanted. 

The benefits conferred upon the world through interest 
are, indeed, not to be forgotten. It is needless to enumerate 
them. Every great, progressive enterprise of civilization 
stands as their witness; and millions of individuals have 
made successful use of such partnerships with capital. Yet 
the whole subject has lain under something of a cloud of 
disrepute until recent times; nor has all the perfection of 
our modern financial system, with the accompanying regu- 
lation of the rates of interest, been able quite to extinguish 
that moral impulse against it which led Moses to discoun- 
tenance the practice in the commonwealth of Israel. We 
cannot survey the results achieved by the employment of 
capital at interest without remembering also the oppressions 
and disasters which have attended them : and we cannot help 
asking whether the advantages may not be secured through 
a worthier principle of action, at a far lighter cost. 

What is there wrong about the taking of interest? Let 
us justify our wish and expectation that, in an approaching, 
better day, that meaning of the word "interest" may be 
marked "obsolete" in the dictionary. We will suppose a 
typical case in order to show the point where wrong enters. 
John Doe has constructed a machine, by the aid of which 



THE GOLDEN RULE REPUBLIC. 59 

he can produce twice as much as he could before. He may 
now join in a partnership with Bichard Eoe, furnishing the 
machine to work instead of himself, and one-half of the 
product, plus the cost of repairs and minus the wages of 
superintendence due to Eoe, will belong equitably to him. 
Doe may occupy his time in constructing other machines to 
work for him, and his returns may, in that way, increase 
rapidly. If, however, the business becomes unprofitable, Doe 
will share in the losses as he did in the gains; and, in any 
event, the wear and tear of his machinery cannot be avoided. 
The supposition thus far represents capitalism at its best. 
The employment of machinery for individual profit is sure 
to bring round, eventually, the same crisis that is now upon 
us: but in this transaction competition may still be free, 
and capital is sharing the risks with labor. 

Let us alter the supposition. Instead of forming a part- 
nership with Eoe, and furnishing capital in the shape either 
of machinery or money, Doe lends his neighbor a sum of 
money at interest. The arrangement, probably, is accepta- 
ble to both parties. Doe is willing to receive less than he 
might do 'as a partner, for the sake of avoiding liability for 
any failure in the business : while Eoe prefers to assume that 
liability, if he may also have the sole management, and be 
entitled to nearly all the proceeds. But here is the false 
step that leads on to wrong. So long as the business pros- 
pers, all goes smoothly ; and even if it falls off so far that the 
interest equals the earning power of the money lent there 
may be some hardship and still no injustice wrought; but 
when a farther decline presents an undiminishing claim for 
interest face to face with nothing to pay it, the wrong has 
begun. Labor must be turned from some other quarter to 
pay this interest. 

We shall, doubtless, meet here the prompt rejoinder that 
the same is true of other debts, whenever there is a failure 
of the expected means to answer them. But there is this 
essential difference between interest and other debts, that 
interest may be paid indefinitely without lessening the prin- 
cipal indebtedness: the lender at ten per cent gets his prin- 
cipal back in ten years; if it is at five per cent, in twenty 
years; and yet the obligation to pay that principal remains 



60 THE GOLDEN RULE REPUBLIC. 

unreleased, and still the interest keeps on. You may hear 
the capitalist reply that a reasonable rate of interest is fair 
and necessary in order to compensate him for the losses that 
will sometimes happen, and for the gains which he might 
have secured if he had retained and used the money himself. 
But this is not a disclosure of his real purpose; if it were, 
he would stand in a better moral position. He is reckoning 
upon a profit, a more desirable profit for himself than he 
could acquire by placing his property at greater hazard; and 
the percentage that he charges is not determined by his risks 
or his opportunities so much as by competition in the money 
market. 

If, however, any such offsets as he calls for could be 
computed, which is impossible, it would not affect the eco- 
nomic results or the moral question; for it would signify 
only the adding of certain credits to an account which is 
already sure, in the long run, to have the advantage. As 
Lord Bacon observed clearly (Essay on Usury) : "It bring- 
eth the treasure of a realm or state into a few hands; for the 
usurer being at certainties, and the other at uncertainties, 
at the end of the game most of the money will be in the box ; 
and ever a state flour isheth when wealth is more equally 
spread." The unintermitting accumulation of interest after 
it ceases to be earned becomes an enormous drain upon pro- 
ductive industry, besides blowing up, after industry fails it, 
such a pile of soap-bubble claims upon nothing as cause in- 
solvencies, unsettle confidence, and contribute largely to cre- 
ate panics; insomuch that legislatures, obeying the percep- 
tions of common sense, but in defiance of logic, have passed 
bankruptcy laws and imposed limits upon the life of notes 
and mortgages, regardless of the fact that an honest obliga- 
tion does not die except by free release or honest payment. 

"What!" exclaims a reader, who has been trained in 
business ways of thinking, "would you annul a debt simply 
because it is hard for the debtor to pay it? Money is a 
machine, and it is right the owner should be compensated 
for its use, and then have it back again, to use farther at 
his own pleasure The sum lent may be the fruits of the 
creditor's own labor, and, at any rate, repudiation is rob- 
bery." But, not to speak of lending like a brother without 



THE GOLDEN RULE REPUBLIC. 61 

compensation, if the money were employed in partnership, 
the lender and the borrower sharing the risks, the case would 
stand upon a different and equitable foundation. If money 
could certainly be returned intact, like an ordinary machine, 
as soon as it became unprofitable, the question would be an 
easier one. But when money is gone, like water spilled on 
the ground, interest upon it clearly ought to cease, because 
after that it must be taking something for nothing, which 
is not honest. "Not so," the reader may rejoin, "for the 
contract was voluntary. Is the lender to be deprived of his 
property because the borrower, through unwisdom or mis- 
fortune, fails to reap the advantage he expected?" "Social- 
ism," he will, very likely, add, "is unpractical, for such can- 
celing of interest would set a premium upon knavery, and 
would bring to a stop the greater portion of business enter- 
prise." To which we answer only that it is high time for 
society to build its enterprises upon a foundation that is not 
immoral, and does not demand to be secured by a sacrifice 
of the essential principle of morality. 

For there is more than an economical abuse — there is 
a moral wrong involved in the institution of interest. The 
denial of the Law of Love, which is imbedded in the com- 
petitive system of business, arrives at one of its most un- 
equivocal expressions in the system of interest. That in- 
vention was ingeniously contrived by the instinct of selfish- 
ness to separate the lender completely from the need of any 
fellowship with the borrower, and to make incomes from 
money as permanent and safe against any risk through the 
reverses of others as are those from real estate. No man has 
the right to withdraw his neck from the yoke of the world's 
burdens, and to entrench himself apart from human broth- 
erhood. Not that the motive in every loan made upon a note 
secured by a mortgage is a base one, by any means, but such 
is the character and tendency of the system. There is a 
moral wrong rooted in it. 

Does it seem, in view of the many good uses and prac- 
tical conveniences of interest, that so severe a judgment upon 
it is a needless insistence upon an extreme and notional stand- 
ard of society? I think that any man, who is in any degree 
a disciple of the Master of Nazareth, will agree with me that 



62 THE GOLDEN RULE REPUBLIC. 

the sort of relation between creditor and debtor, which the 
taking of interest is peculiarly adapted to promote, is not 
after the ideal of human brotherhood put forward by Jesus 
Christ. Yet, if this is true, these censures do not rest upon 
mere abstractions; for the ideals taught by Jesus Christ are 
the substance of all noble lives. Deeper reflection will only 
show more and more clearly their daily and vital importance ; 
and to that self-searching of the Christian conscience we 
submit the question. 



§ 9. OF MONEY. 

Money would not play as great a part in the com- 
monwealth which we are portraying as it does today. When 
all branches of production are in the public hands, and all 
products are divided among the laborers without a thought 
of individual profit, people may buy and sell among them- 
selves to some extent, in works of art, for example, but it is 
evident there will be comparatively little need of money for 
domestic trade. In dealing with foreign countries, money 
would be required as at present. The chief point, however, 
to remark is this: that the office of money as a carrier of 
value, in which quality its own variations, as between silver 
and gold, or as due to the conditions of the money market, 
are perpetually turning men's business from profit to loss 
and vice versa in the intervals between purchases and sales, 
or between the contracting and the payment of debts, — this 
office of money, which involves the hardest of our financial 
problems, would be relieved of its dangers by the adoption of 
the national dividends. The vast mass of transactions would 
thereby be reduced almost to the simplicity of barter. 

The foundation of the financial system of the co-opera- 
tive commonwealth would be the time-check. This is pro- 



THE GOLDEN RULE REPUBLIC. C>3 

posed to be a certificate, identical in form for the same grade 
of labor throughout all occupations, attesting that A. B. has 
labored (here the necessary details) so many hours. These 
time-checks, upon presentation at the proper place, as handy 
as the postoffice, by the one to whom they were issued or 
his representative, would be exchanged for treasury warrants 
for the amount in corresponding shares of the national divi- 
dends to which the laborer is entitled. These might be 
cashed at once in ordinary money, which would soon return 
to the treasury in payments for articles purchased, unless 
it were laid aside to swell some private fund for subsequent 
uses. Warrants, and even time-checks, might be made trans- 
ferable by endorsement, but they would bear no interest. 
Safe-deposits there may be, perhaps, for money and valua- 
bles; but no discernible chance of profit for bankers and 
brokers, unless in connection with foreign travel or other 
enterprises abroad. Still, if Jew or Gentile desired to try 
the experiment he would be at liberty to do so. 



64 THE GOLDEN RULE REPUBLIC. 



§ 10. THE EIGHT TO LABOB. 

We approach the crucial division of our subject, 
the citizen's right to labor. Here and now, if ever anywhere, 
there is need of genuine loyalty, intelligent and unreserved, 
to the principles of the divine Teacher, and not less, of a 
broad, right-minded grasp of actual and practical conditions. 
That phrase, "the right to labor/' has a welcome sound to the 
myriads who live by wages and know no darker calamity than 
the loss of work. But there is another host, not nearly so 
numerous as these, and yet a powerful army, and nearly all 
the voices that are heard in the world are among them, who 
listen to this clause of the socialist program with feelings of 
strong aversion. They do not live by their own labor, or, 
if they do, it is at the counter or the office-desk rather than 
in the workshop or the field. Socialism is, in their eyes, an 
attempt to pull society down to the level of its lower classes ; 
forcing dissimilar elements into mutually hostile companion- 
ship; destroying the leisured class, among whom the highest 
results of civilization are embodied; and substituting for the 
diversified social prospect and endless possibilities of indi- 
vidualism, under which our country has gained its present 
standing, only a dull, unnatural, mechanical routine fore- 
doomed to failure. Such are the protests issued against the 
Golden Eule reconstruction by the existing system of or- 
ganized and legalized selfishness. Let us endeavor to show, 
in return, how well authority would agree with liberty in a 
state established upon the basis of the Golden Eule, and to 
describe in some detail how large the incentives and advant- 
ages would be that the citizen may enjoy. 

One of the first things to be sought for in a just order 
of society must be the freedom of every person, in all respects 
which do not conflict with the rights and welfare of his 
fellow-creatures; and for this practical object we have sug- 



THE GOLDEN RULE REPUBLIC. 65 

gestions ready to our hand in the local self-governing bodies 
which abound, like "wheels within wheels," in our own re- 
public. A wise legislator, in a period of transition, will turn 
familiar social customs, even though not perfect, to the higher 
uses of reform, rather than add to the difficulties of the situ- 
ation by striving to make all things new. The question is, 
how to combine the utmost range of liberty with that pres- 
sure of discipline which society must be able to exercise in 
order to carry out its rightful will and protect the interests 
of each and every member. 



66 THE GOLDEN RULE REPUBLIC. 



THE ORGANIZATION OF LABOR. 

Labor is an element of life so exceptional in its magni- 
tude as to demand an organization by itself. Every kind of 
occupation that entitles the worker to a share in the divi- 
dends, whether its product is material, as iron ore or point 
lace, or non-material, as the physician's business is to make 
health or the lawyer's to make peace, should be organized, 
beginning at the bottom with the local labor-union. If there 
are not enough workmen of the same class in a place to con- 
stitute a union, it would be better to extend its territory 
than to include any who have not close relations and perfect 
mutual understanding. These associations should all be 
framed along the same general lines, simple and wholly 
democratic in constitution, however the local by-laws may 
vary; and the main lines, at least, ought to be defined by the 
constitution or statutes of the state, because all classes of the 
citizens are affected by their working. 

In every state there would be an intermediate grade 
of labor councils in every craft or profession between the 
local unions and the state Commissioners of Labor. These 
district councils would be composed of delegates elected by 
the members of the local unions, and their duties may be 
so laborious as to require daily sessions. The highest step 
of organization for any craft would be its part in the state 
Labor Commission, and the several degrees together may be 
termed its guild. 

But inasmuch as there may be some hundreds of guilds 
in a single state, a different plan is proposed for this Labor 
Commission. Let the guilds be arranged into a convenient 
number of groups, and let each of these groups be repre- 
sented by one commissioner, to be appointed by the governor 
of the state, with the consent of the district councils, and 
subject to a referendum vote by the entire membership of 
the unions if called for. This would tend to simplify the 



THE GOLDEN RULE REPUBLIC. (37 

voting of the unions at tlieir elections; and it would fix the 
responsibility for good appointments upon one person, while 
reserving to the people the full power of revising his acts, 
if necessary. 

In our scheme of a Golden Eule republic, the familiar 
division of functions between the Federal Union and the 
states is retained, but it is newly applied. In the province 
of Labor, the main line of distinction would be that the own- 
ership of land, capital, and the products of the labor of the 
nation would be held by the whole body of the people, and 
their use would be subject to federal authority, while the per- 
sonal conditions of labor would be left, as far as possible, in 
the first place, to the individual to determine, then would 
pertain to the local labor-union, or the most convenient social 
authority, and so on upward, as questions grow comprehen- 
sive, to the higher labor councils or the state. The danger 
of grave conflicts of jurisdiction would be greatly dimin- 
ished by the fact that the resources of wealth would be locked 
securely in the grasp of the nation. The chief bone of con- 
tention would be taken out of the way. Furthermore, it 
would seem a rather difficult matter to stir up a lasting con- 
troversy between parties, both of whom represent, and are 
accountable to, the same body of persons. 

The local union might exercise a pretty wide range of 
functions. The guidance of its own kind of labor within its 
territory would naturally devolve upon it, but the meaning 
of this, in the different guilds, would vary notably. The guild 
of teachers would have as little to do as any, because educa- 
tion would be one of the things most directly under federal 
control, being as vital to the common and universal life of 
the nation as the dividend; and yet, the promotions upon 
which advance in wages must depend would be conferred, as 
usual, upon recommendation by the local union to which each 
teacher belonged. The lawyer or physician, in like manner, 
would receive the general dividend as his support; but he 
would rely for advancement in grade and income upon the 
increase of practice and reputation founded upon his suc- 
cess with individual cases. Clients would select their coun- 
sel, families their doctor, although the number of cases under 



68 THE GOLDEN RULE REPUBLIC. 

the care of one practitioner at the same time would have to 
be limited, and the union would find various means to bring 
the young members of a profession into service. Those of 
the same grade would draw the same dividend ; no fees what- 
ever would tempt the older or stronger men to usurp all 
the business. 

Every possible variety of production, from agriculture 
or mining on the most extensive scale, or the grandest and 
most elaborate of manufactories, down to the tailor shop 
wanted in a little "city of the sixth class," or the industry 
of some woman breeding gold fish and and canary birds, 
would be pursued under the administrative charge of the 
officers of the labor-unions. If land and buildings were re- 
quired, the civil authorities would concede the location, but 
it would belong to the local labor authorities of that guild to 
set up the plant and to organize the working force of opera- 
tives, bosses, managers, and even, if the concern were large 
enough, a board of directors. 

It is true that until talents for administration of great 
business enterprises are more widely developed than now it 
would be necessary for the unions to act under reserve of the 
advice and consent of a higher authority, the district coun- 
cils. But it will always be the wise policy in a social com- 
monwealth to leave matters to the ordering of those most 
directly engaged in them so far as practicable. And the 
limitations that may be placed upon this local freedom will 
flow solely from the sense of a larger unity of interest in the 
social body. This idea of supervision, in cases of difficulty, 
by the district councils, or appeal to them for arbitration or 
judicial action, is a fruitful one. The peril that some would 
see in it, of encroaching bureaucracy, would be averted by the 
fact that, in the social commonwealth, the higher authori- 
ties would be, after all, entirely and immediately at the com- 
mand of the masses. Whenever the people conclude that 
some court or executive is needless, the legal means would 
be at hand to alter that part of their system, with full discus- 
sion and deliberation, but without delay. Even amendments 
to the federal or state constitutions might, probably, be ac- 
complished more readily than now. 

There is one field in which the appellate character of 



THE GOLDEN RULE REPUBLIC. 69 

the district councils might prove to be peculiarly useful. The 
right of every person to his just opportunities in life must 
be jealously guarded. The youth must have his apprentice- 
ship according to his genius and his choice; the skilled work- 
man must not be hindered from earning and attaining pro- 
motion. Nor is it less needful to prevent partiality than 
prejudice. And it is hardest to maintain the even balance 
of justice in a narrow arena like the local union. Accord- 
ingly, if any individual is aggrieved by a union or any of 
its members in such a question, and the informal court of 
arbitration cannot settle it, let either party appeal to the 
district labor council. If the case is of enough conseqeunce, 
not in money or social connections so much as in moral prin- 
ciple and precedence, there should be a final appeal to the 
state supreme court. The tribunal of last resort ought always 
to represent the entire social body and not a class. 



70 THE GOLDEN RULE REPUBLIC. 



THE DISCIPLINE OF LABOR. 

One of the difficulties encountered by the unions, under 
socialism, would be found in securing efficient superintend- 
ents and bosses. Discipline is apt to be loose where the boss 
elected and the hands were associates on an equal footing 
just before the election. To obviate this, let the positions of 
boss or foreman and of superintendent or manager be made 
steps in a regular order of promotion, answering to the com- 
missioned company officers in the army, as the skilled work- 
man may be said to correspond to the non-commissioned, 
while unskilled labor may stand, if need be, for the rank 
and file. Let the lower ranks be conferred by the union; but 
refer the authority to grant certificates of competence as boss 
or manager to the district council, which can prescribe ex- 
aminations and arrange for periods of trial service in places 
more favorable to success than the applicant's own home. 
Such appointments would be subject to acceptance by all 
parties concerned, and would not interfere with freedom of 
choice on the part of the unions. 

There would be no lack of resources for all the disci- 
pline required by the guilds. Eules for the government of 
labor would be enacted by every state, intended to restrain 
the possible arbitrary, harsh, unreasonable treatment of labor- 
ers by those set over them. But with all improvement in 
Jaws, and the gentler tone we look for in human relations 
under socialism, the bosses and managers might hold their 
reins as firmly as they do now. Physical punishments, or 
even direct fines, inflicted by a guild are, indeed, not to be 
thought of. Criminal offences would not fall within their 
jurisdiction. But forfeiture of time-checks as a penalty for 
misconduct in labor is both fair and effective, if it is kept 
closely within proper bounds. The lazy or insubordinate 
might fear "the rod of the mouth/' especially when the cul- 



THE GOLDEN RULE REPUBLIC. 71 

prit was sent by his superintendent to face the board of offi- 
cials of the union and receive their rebuke. 

It would lie within the power of a union to suspend or 
expel a member; but at this point, with an exception to be 
mentioned presently, their authority would end, and their 
acts would carry no weight beyond their own domain. If 
any person chose to withdraw, the union could not hinder 
him, and if expelled, he would still have the right of a citi- 
zen to claim admission into any other union without regard 
to his previous record. One severer measure of discipline, 
however, would be still in reserve, to follow and reach a stiff- 
necked and persistent offender. The same authority that 
promoted a man to higher rank or grade could reduce him 
again by due process of law, for sufficient cause. Of course, 
this would not stand in the way of his earning a new promo- 
tion; and he would possess his inalienable right of appeal 
to the regular courts. 

The right of the citizen to labor implies an obligation 
on the part of the state to furnish him with occupation, and 
this, in turn, implies an obligation on his part to accept the 
occupation offered. There is a stumbling-block to many in 
the mere naming of such obligations. In truth, they must 
be interpreted by the Law of Love, or abuses will grow up 
from them; but the principle is right and familiar. No 
one is exempted by his high talents and calling, even now, 
from laying his shoulder to the wheel in an emergency. So- 
cialism might fairly widen the application. If orders came 
slowly at the mill, but work were driving in the harvest field, 
the farmers' union would call upon their neighbors of the 
mill for help, and it would not be refused. Such things are 
done today, and they would be all the more common in the 
Golden Eule republic. When labor is made a healthful, hon- 
orable service for the common weal, and is not permitted to 
become a burden, much that is now shunned as menial labor, 
in aid of other people and under their direction, will be done 
cheerfully, as a neighborly kindness. 

But while the triumph of socialism will surely effect a 
wholesome cleansing of our American atmosphere from the 
malaria of a selfish and labor-despising pride, it would be an 
error to divert our skillful workmen from the tasks which 



72 THE GOLDEN RULE REPUBLIC. 

they alone can do best. Such calls for help in general, which 
are not met by the great army of unskilled labor, would then 
be answered from the workers of the lowest grade belonging 
to any union that might be suitable. There will always be 
a number, more or less, who may be attached to one union 
or another, doing useful service, without ever attaining to 
the degree of skilled artisans in any trade. They might be 
admitted to the lowest grade, however, and would be reck- 
oned in the general dividend. 

Apart from this class, the lowest grade would be com- 
posed of young men and women, who would be the ones 
called upon first for all sorts of irregular public services, 
either in their hours of labor or in addition to them, for 
occasions of concourse, or festivity, or mere incidental jobs, 
or danger; now, it might be, a turn of waiting at table, and 
again, in the fire brigade. Such work might well be volun- 
tary, as far as practicable, answering as a training in public 
spirit, but it should be paid for, and attended with due credit, 
and with honor wherever merited. Interruptions of the rou- 
tine of labor by the summons to help some public or fraternal 
purpose would be expected, and the ranks of the lowest grade 
should be kept so full that they may be scattered properly 
and create no burden or harm to any one. For this reason 
at least six years of active membership in it should be re- 
quired before promotion; while one might pass through the 
higher grades, upon proof of merit, much more speedily. 

The authority of a guild would extend over all business 
in its own craft done by its own members; but there would 
be a universal rule, that matters touching other persons as 
well as members of the guild should be referred to the proper 
municipal or county or state or federal officials; and ques- 
tions of jurisdiction must be decided, in the last appeal, by 
the supreme court. We may repeat here that, in the com- 
monwealth we are describing, officials, whether in a guild or 
elsewhere, would receive no greater salary than the highest 
dividend; and that every public servant, whether elected or 
appointed, would always be within reach of the people's 
mandate to resign his place for cause. And we may add that, 
as is strictly the case today, no citizen chosen to any such 



THE GOLDEN RULE REPUBLIC. 73 

position would be at liberty to decline to serve, except under 
permission of the constituency that elected him. 

It is strange that so many doubts have been cast upon 
the probable efficiency of a socialist government. Eemember — 
it is the antipodes of anarchy. If there are strong men in 
a nation, they will climb to the head of affairs under any 
system. In this country, the greatest men, the natural lead- 
ers, habitually neglect the public interests because they can 
make more money by applying themselves to their own busi- 
ness. Only let their personal interests be identified with 
those of the public, as national ownership and the dividends 
would unite them, and we shall see them transferring their 
energies to public affairs. New men will press to the front 
in the new order, but it would be a surprising mistake were 
we to imagine that the powerful spirits, who dominate the 
present order, will be thrust far or long into the back-ground. 
Society will need their splendid abilities, and will employ 
them. And there is no fear of a weak administration in 
their hands. 

But will not these men be able to convert trie social 
commonwealth into a vaster machine than they ever owned 
before, working under their control and bowing its mighty 
forces to their private interests? They may do so, if the 
common people forget to defend the bulwarks of their lib- 
erty, universal education, direct legislation with universal 
suffrage, public ownership, and the dividend; not otherwise. 
If the two former are maintained, the others will not be 
surrendered; and if the nation holds firmly the two ends 
of the cord of business, there is no danger of too hard a knot 
being tied between them. 



74 THE GOLDEN RULE REPUBLIC. 



THE LIBERTY OF LABOR. 

Let us turn from the authority vested in unions and 
guilds to look at the labor question in the co-operative com- 
monwealth from the worker's point of view. First he must 
choose his vocation. "Give free choice of occupation, under 
this system/' says Dr. Hadley, "and we should at once have 
an overplus of painters and musicians, with a deficiency of 
farmers and mechanics/' (Economics. § 107.) Perhaps 
so; but we will compare the restrictions needful under so- 
cialism with actual conditions under the commercialism pre- 
ferred by the president of Yale for what he considers its 
greater freedom. 

It would be necessary for the central Bureau of Esti- 
mates to fix the number of laborers required for every branch 
of business throughout the nation, as well as the quantity of 
products. The one estimate would be essential to the other 
and could be made with the same approximate accuracy, im- 
proving with length of practice. The federal government 
would announce, each year, how many more farmers, or me- 
chanics, or clerks, or professional men, of every sort, could 
be admitted to the unions; as for artists or musicians, their 
case involves a different element, and will be treated of under 
the head of Honor. The youth, who had arrived at the 
proper age, would apply for an apprenticeship, or whatever 
the special training may be termed, very likely specifying 
more than one trade or profession in the order of his pref- 
erence. Impartial entering tests would be devised to sift the 
candidates for the positions most desired. If he missed of 
his first choice, the youth would enter the next, for he must 
go to work somewhere; but he would be at liberty to try 
again, year by year, losing nothing but time by repeated 
failures, until he gained his object. Does the son of any 
ordinary man, under the present system, have a better chance 
than that? 



THE GOLDEN RULE REPUBLIC. 75 

Apprenticeship would naturally be arranged to termi- 
nate with the years of minority, and then the workman, en- 
rolled as a member of a guild, would begin to receive the 
general dividend. If, by any means, apprenticeship or other 
training be prolonged beyond the age of majority, or if a 
man, at any age, choose to enter a new occupation, the divi- 
dend would not apply in such cases, but Congress would 
have to determine the length of apprenticeship, and what 
allowance it may be wise to make for such courses of educa- 
tion taken outside of their natural, allotted time. The pre- 
sumption would be that one probation passed successfully 
would contribute something of value toward another, and, 
for this reason, a skilled artisan, wishing to change his occu- 
pation for another, would be held back only long enough to 
prove his fitness. If it were a lawyer, who proposed to be- 
come an architect, the same principle would be followed. He 
must relinquish the dividends to which he was entitled as a 
lawyer, and accept an apprentice's allowance until he could 
show his competency for the lowest grade in his new profes- 
sion. But any one who merely removed from one union to 
another of the same guild would carry his grade and rank 
with him. Does any man under employment in our coun- 
try enjoy a fairer liberty than this? 

Free transportation would, no doubt, lead to greater 
restlessness of families until people grew tired of removing, 
as they certainly would do; although the enjoyment would 
always continue to be more general than at present. But 
any person, who was dissatisfied with his union or the work 
assigned him, might go to any other place he pleased, and 
the union there would be obliged to receive him, and to find 
work for him unless unavoidably prevented. If a tendency 
to roving should appear, the unions would have means to 
check it. 

Laborers would tend to collect at favorite points, and 
several important results would follow. For one thing: every 
occupation would gravitate freely to those places where it 
might best be pursued. We see this tendency now. In a 
socialist commonwealth, it could be diverted or checked by 
legislation ; but in ordinary circumstances it would be equally 
natural and good. For another thing: it would be easier 



76 THE GOLDEN EULE REPUBLIC. 

than it is now for any one to leave uncongenial associations 
and select a community where he could be most at home. So 
far from socialism enforcing unwelcome relations between 
people of opposite tastes, there would be more liberty than 
our critics themselves have ever enjoyed. For another re- 
sult: the race question would solve itself, by those of like 
affiliations coming together. Socialism, by allowing to the 
negro or the Indian an equal chance, in unions and com- 
munities of their own, to earn a citizen's living and privi- 
leges without interfering in any way with the white laborer's 
access to the same, would subtract the worst fuel from the 
fires of hatred; and race antipathies, the most utterly savage 
of all prejudices, would, in time, die away. For another 
result: the federal government might have to watch care- 
fully over the public schools in some quarters where foreign 
immigrants would congregate, or else the standard of edu- 
cation might be altered and decline. And for one more 
result, following upon some of those already named and 
other causes: the several states may find it wise to provide 
inducement to draw population into certain districts, by 
ampler public provision for the comfort of life in those 
places. 

Labor would be carried on under forms of agreement as 
to time and conditions ; and agreements would be carried out 
with none of the trouble from irresponsiblity on either side, 
of which employers frequently complain. Many persons, 
both male and female, would work under the direct control 
of the unions. These might be assigned to tasks, by the 
hour or day or longer, in aid of individuals or for the public ; 
or they might be engaged singly in productive work, such 
as sewing, basket-making, cabinet-making, perhaps at home; 
or they might be employed in gangs in field or shop, under 
a foreman. Another large number would work in larger 
companies, more fully organized, as in factories or mines or 
plantations, under superintendents, who would relieve the 
union of immediate care, holding the practical authority, al- 
though accountable to the official board of the union for all 
their conduct. 



THE GOLDEN RULE REPUBLIC. 77 



INDIVIDUAL INITIATIVE AND INDEPENDENT LABOR. 

But many others, how many it is hard to foretell, would 
follow their own initiative. One person for himself, or a 
number in partnership, desiring to undertake some business 
by themselves, would present their plans for building and 
schemes for work to their local union, which in most cases, 
would decide the question. Such matters, however, would 
be subject to revision by the Labor Commission of the 
state, and this would be in close touch with the appropriate 
federal bureau. If there were room for the enterprise, and 
reason, in the character of its promoters, to hope for its suc- 
cess, the land and capital required would be advanced by the 
municipal or county authorities and the federal Department 
of Production. Quite likely, the rule might be that a man 
should attain the rank of boss, or even superintendent, be- 
fore taking a leading part in such a project. Many of these 
propositions, however, would involve so little, that any skilled 
workman may be able to furnish, in his own record of labor, 
a sufficient guaranty. 

For instance, a man wants to cultivate a farm, with his 
own labor and such help as he may occasionally get from the 
farmers' union. The social commonwealth would conduct 
agricultural operations with the finest machinery, and on a 
scale against which the man working alone could not possi- 
bly compete. But socialism starts from the common people, 
and whenever the wish of an individual is consistent with the 
general welfare it would readily be granted. If the produc- 
tion of food enough for all should prove to be an easy task, 
involving short hours of daily labor, the majority of voters 
would be apt to permit the laborers to work in the way they 
might choose. 

Our farmer, having obtained the permit of his union 
and the allowance from the national treasury for stock, tools, 



78 THE GOLDEN RULE REPUBLIC. 

supplies, fertilizers and labor, not including his own time, 
selects his land from all that is available for the purpose, 
and then, after consulting the agent of the federal Bureau 
of Apportionment as to what crops he shall put in, he pro- 
ceeds according to his own judgment. When the harvest 
arrives, the federal inspector must examine it and certify 
to its quality and quantity. Every article, from any source, 
that passes to the Department of Distribution and is credited 
toward the dividend, must be inspected for these essentials. 
When the harvests have been duly weighed, measured and 
classified, the federal agent takes them and they go to feed 
the nation. The farmer's time-checks would be commuted 
into a regular salary, of which his estimated living from 
the farm would be a part, and the balance of which he would 
draw year by year, as it was determined, from the general 
dividend. Of course, he would be open to promotion in 
grade, with its attendant increase of salary. 

One advantage must be yielded by any man who leaves 
the service of the union to embark upon this comparatively 
independent line. If he has gained the second, or even a 
higher grade, he must waive it for the time and begin again 
at the bottom; because his capacity, under altered conditions, 
has to be proved anew. He may distinguish himself, and 
then he would be awarded honor for merit in his vocation, 
and his grade might be advanced. If he fails through no 
fault of his own, he may, upon the proper inquiry made, be 
authorized to receive the general dividend, and to continue 
in his work, as he would do if employed by the union. Noth- 
ing but some public necessity, like a famine, would constrain 
the co-operative commonwealth, for the sake of adopting more 
rapid methods of food production, to annul such a contract 
once made with a farmer. If he kept on producing up to the 
requirement of the lowest grade, he might spend his days 
upon his loved acres, and his descendants might follow in his 
footsteps. 

The like order may apply to others, who desire to live 
somewhat separate from their fellows ; as, the shoemaker, who 
wishes to manufacture shoes at home, instead of in the 
crowded shop, or the fisherman, who wants a boat and outfit 
to use as his own. In many trades, notwithstanding the dis- 



THE GOLDEN RULE REPUBLIC. 79 

advantages of working alone, a good artisan might attain 
to high grades of production, as to quantity and quality. 
There might even be a revival of home industries, with the 
accompanying artistic individuality of results, especially by 
the help of electric power. Nor would the system be con- 
fined to individual laborers and a limited output. Partner- 
ships might be formed, as extensive as could work together 
with success. Many of the great establishments of the nation 
might be independent of the labor unions so far as their 
organization and internal affairs were concerned. It would 
be a recognized order of business, occasioning to the unions 
no annoyance or trouble. 

The object of such an arrangement would be simply 
personal satisfaction in working. No separate ownership would 
be given by it. All the product would go to the credit of the 
nation. If the laborers did better and more rapid work 
than others, it would bring them honor, and also promotion 
(if they had not attained the highest degrees already), but 
no individual profit. There is no reason why it should pay 
them anything apart from the dividends. They would be 
sure of as fine a living as their neighbors who were employed 
by the unions, and they could not deserve more. On the 
contrary, if they failed to come up to the average of pro- 
duction, their career might be terminated at any point. No 
claims of creditors would have to be adjusted. The nation 
might lose by mismanagement, sometimes, in the hands of 
unions as well as of individuals, — a trifling waste beside the 
incalculable wreckage strewn along the track of competi- 
tion; but, unless it were a case of dishonesty, for the crimi- 
nal courts, or such abuse of time and material as might be 
visited with the penalties known to the local union, the un- 
successful laborers would suffer only in shame and in for- 
feiture of public confidence. Wherever this independent labor 
and the ordinary union labor existed side by side, an emu- 
lation would arise, which could hardly be other than health- 
ful, since they would both be subject to the curbing influ- 
ence of the dividend. 

The idea of independent labor, working with personal 
initiative and management, upon public capital, for the pub- 
lic benefit, may be developed farther than we can now see. 



80 THE GOLDEN RULE REPUBLIC. 

The results may be less uniform than those from public 
management, but they could be estimated with sufficient accu- 
racy by averages, and, if attended with comparative loss, 
they need not be permitted to go far enough to jeopardize 
the total amount of production for the people's use. The 
percentage of individual enterprise might be larger than it 
is among us, and its influence would be more truly inspir- 
ing. Let not the prosperous few, who read these lines, judge 
by their own habits of feeling, but put themselves in the place 
of the masses. 

Let the mass of farmers, in particular, reflect, and 
answer candidly whether the position outlined here is not 
better than the one they are in today. Would aught they 
cherish be sacrificed by the change from commercialism to 
socialism? Here is the offer of an undivided ownership in 
the whole country, joined with an actual, practical right to 
occupy and use freely any portion of it not already in use 
by some other person, and to do this without price because 
it is lawfully their own. Is it less enjoyable, honorable, de- 
sirable than their present ownership of such land only as they 
are rich enough to pay for, or else must hold encumbered 
with a mortgage? Set the farmer's relations with the fed- 
eral officials by the side of his present experiences in mak- 
ing and marketing his crops, and see which system would 
afford the greater security and freedom. 

Or, look at the alternative arrangement: that of culti- 
vating large or small tracts of land, with many laborers or 
few, but all under the direction of the union. The advantage 
of the farmer, as to ease, freedom and security appears even 
greater than before (provided he does not care to manage 
the business himself) by as much as production becomes 
easier when performed upon a larger scale and with less 
individual responsibility. 

Is the liberty of the merchants or manufacturers on a 
larger or smaller scale, as they live today, one whit preferable 
to their opportunities under socialism, unless it be in their 
privilege of fighting to the death for the biggest profits? And 
in view of the proportion of failures and the miseries en- 
tailed, is that privilege worth its cost? Is it really a privi- 
lege, or a right, at all? Let facts and reasonable prospects 



THE GOLDEN RULE REPUBLIC. 81 

be compared, and not mere parrot-like boastings about our 
country. Or, is the position of any class of professional men 
better today than it would be as members of the socialist 
public service? To artisans and wage-earners generally, the 
revolution would bring unqualified benefit. 

Is it feared that, with public ownership of all the land, 
there may creep in an undefined, but endless swarm of in- 
terferences with personal liberty? Every man feels that he 
would rather act quite foolishly at his own will than wisely 
at the dictation of another. This is a chief ground of ob- 
jection to socialism, especially among farmers, but it has 
no weight. The rules of business and society would then 
be made by the very same people who must obey them, and 
they would not long impose upon themselves. Eather, let 
us hope and strive that the level of popular virtue and taste 
may be high enough to insure the good rules that will cer- 
tainly be needed. K"o class authority then would be able to 
render them odious. 

Our survey of the new order from the laborer's point 
of view is not yet concluded. We do not presume to cover 
the whole ground, but there are several things that must not 
be overlooked. First among them may be named the plan 
of grading the workers in connection with the dividends. 
This plan has been referred to already in the section upon 
the citizen's right to a living. It is proposed that a num- 
ber of grades of merit, for quality and quantity of produc- 
tion, and for degrees of excellence in other lines of work, 
be established throughout every organized industry. The 
number may best be uniform, for the sake of calculating the 
dividends; and perhaps should not be less than five. The 
lowest of these would coincide with the rank of skilled work- 
man, which is to be conferred at the close of apprenticeship. 
The terms of promotion to the others may be defined by clear 
distinctions, or steps of progress in skill, or, failing these, 
they may consist in maintaining an excellent record of labor 
during, say, nine years for each grade, reaching the highest 
in thirty-six years, that is, at the age of fifty-seven, if ma- 
jority is fixed at twenty-one. 

Congress would have to arrange the details, and the 



82 THE GOLDEN RULE REPUBLIC. 

federal government must execute the scheme, because the 
distribution of the special dividend, which depends upon it, 
is a national affair, and none but federal officers would be 
sufficiently impartial. Grade commissions, or courts, should 
be appointed to attend to this business; perhaps the federal 
judges might add it to their functions, if litigation happily 
declines far enough in the new era. They should sit for 
the purpose at a specified season every year, and candidates 
might present evidence for their claims from records or 
recommendations of local unions, or from any other quarter. 

As to hours of labor, the problem would not be the same. 
They might be left to the regulation of the local unions in 
cases, probably the most frequent, where the effect of the 
rules would fall upon those alone who framed them, whether 
they shortened the hours for the sake of longer leisure, or 
lengthened them for larger dividends. If a laborer were dis- 
satisfied with the hours prescribed in one union, he might 
be able to find another that might suit him. But if the 
service, like that of a marketman, or a physician, or a rail- 
road man, were such as directly influenced the comfort or 
welfare of other people, the power to direct their hours of 
labor must be shared by others. The unions also, of the 
building trades, for example, are so interlinked in their in- 
terests, and the well-being of a whole community may be so 
involved in such action by a part of the unions embraced in 
it, that an ultimate authority upon this question ought to 
be vested in the councils of the* municipality or the county, 
or the state or nation, as may be most appropriate. 

But the appointed hours of labor would be short, at the 
longest. Some one will inquire whether a person would be 
free to labor for his own profit after the regular hours were 
over. The time of every one, beyond his lawful duties to 
the state, would be his own. The individual and partnership 
enterprises described above would fix their own hours, but, 
it will be remembered, they would help only the national divi- 
dends. As for enterprises undertaken in leisure hours for 
individual profit, the presumption, under socialism, would 
always be in favor of liberty. The community, however, 
would always decide whether an industry were compatible 
with the public welfare. Works of art, which do not come 



THE ({OLDEN KULE REPUBLIC. 83 

under the rules of ordinary production, would naturally be 
the creations of such leisure hours; and humbler specialties 
of personal ingenuity might find a circle of customers to wel- 
come them. In earlier ages, men were wont to guard their 
inventions with the utmost secrecy, because there were no 
patent rights. Now and then, under the new order, one 
would do the like for the same reason; but a public senti- 
ment that could sustain national ownership would frown 
severely upon such superfluous greediness. Materials used 
in any case would have to be purchased from the public 
stock, or else imported from abroad; and it would be so 
difficult for any individual to undersell the nation in any 
article that such manufacturing would be too limited to 
make account of. For, if a device appeared to be really 
valuable, the Department of Production would adopt it and 
make it free to the whole people, and would pay due honor 
and reward to the inventor. We shall find opportunity here- 
after to dwell upon the noble stimulus which the social com- 
monwealth might give to the development of genius. 



84 THE GOLDEN RULE REPUBLIC. 



UNPOPULAR OCCUPATIONS. 

There would be a special line of regulations of the hours 
of labor, however, which would touch all members of the 
trade or calling affected, in all the states, and would be re- 
served to the federal government. This would occur when 
any calling failed to attract enough laborers in the nation 
to accomplish the required work or to return the required 
amount of products, annually. In such cases would arise 
some of the most perplexing problems with which the com- 
monwealth would ever have to deal. It is here the present 
competitive order displays its advantages to the eyes of the 
more fortunate classes in the strongest light. There seems 
to be no trouble, as the world goes, in getting men to do the 
most offensive work, even for very meager pay; indeed, the 
men who do the roughest, most unclean and most danger- 
ous tasks are among the poorest paid. 

We have all listened to speeches like these: "They do 
not mind it as we should, being used to such things; proba- 
bly their sensibilities are coarse. If they were brighter and 
smarter, they would find better employment. Besides, the 
disagreeable work must be done by somebody." The truth 
is, that people who are in the habit of talking so would cheer- 
fully allow their unfortunate brothers to live and die under 
the yoke. They may bestow more or less to alleviate the 
resulting suffering, but never lift a finger against the selfish 
system, which is the leading cause. If we had no better 
chance to rise than millions have, most of us would lie down 
under the yoke as they do. There is no breath of the spirit 
of Jesus Christ in that style of discourse, whatever the social 
facts around us may be. 

If the Man of Nazareth is our pattern, we shall give 
our own strong right hands to our low-down brothers and lift 
them up, even though it means for us to share the yoke our- 



THE GOLDEN RULE REPUBLIC. 85 

selves. But let no one imagine that socialists would build 
a commonwealth upon altruism alone. A wise statemanship, 
while sedulously nurturing and addressing the highest mo- 
tives, will never neglect the other motives, which, although 
lower, are not less right. There would be room, as well, for 
needful uses of force in the Golden Eule republic, even 
though the reliance would be upon intelligence and good 
will. 

Some occupations may lack recruits through a mere cur- 
rent prejudice against them, but others are toilsome, or dis- 
agreeable, or hazardous, or unwholesome, and yet they all 
must be filled. The difficulty here is admitted. Men are 
spending their days in hateful labor, risking their lives and, 
by thousands, losing them, under the effectual spur of bit- 
ter poverty, and still the merciless machine runs prosper- 
ously on, for each year witnesses a glut in the labor-market. 
Under the new order, such pressure of want would be un- 
known. Socialism would have to make a different appeal, 
offering sufficient inducements for willing service, reserving 
compulsion for a last resort, and then applying it without 
partiality. Let us enumerate the measures which a co-oper- 
ative commonwealth might employ in preference to con- 
scription, and we may see that the final necessity for force 
would not be a grave one. At the worst, if society could go 
on at all, it must be a happier situation than to be involved, 
by general consent, as we are now, in a system of enormous 
manslaughter, and worse, as much worse as the misery and 
degradation of man's higher nature is of greater account 
than bare mortality. 

It may well be that a humaner society than ours would 
abandon some occupations rather than sacrifice the workers. 
Neither art nor fashion can furnish a valid claim to be grati- 
fied with colors that destroy the health of those who manu- 
facture them. The lace is too costly for an empress to wear, 
that is woven at the price of a woman's eyes. In many oc- 
cupations, including a full share of those that are most 
avoided, the progress of invention will, no doubt, remove 
both danger and discomfort, so that they may even become 
desirable. The pleasanter conditions of labor and living, 
especially the freedom of communication, would quite trans- 



86 THE GOLDEX RULE REPUBLIC. 

form the popular sentiment as to many industries. Agri- 
culture, the handling of fertilizers, soap manufacture and 
similar work, mining and quarrying, road building and ex- 
cavation, logging, seafaring, are among the important classes 
of labor that would be greatly lightened by the advent of 
socialism. 

Still there w^ould be a remainder of occupations not 
desired by a sufficient number of laborers. When the annual 
summons has been given for the young men and women 
to choose their paths for earning a livelihood, and the first, 
second, and third choices have been arranged as may be 
best, the Bureau of Apportionment would consider what in- 
ducements, pursuant to acts of Congress, they may offer to 
draw apprentices into such occupations as are not yet sup- 
plied. These unpopular pursuits may lie in any department 
of industry, and the volunteers who accept them may turn 
from any position to do so. It might require some readjust- 
ment of other quotas, but nothing serious. In most cases, 
the situation would be chronic, and the inducements would 
operate as a regular, understood premium, effectually pre- 
venting an actual deficiency. 

Inducements offered would take the form either of ex- 
emptions, bounties, or honors. In all these employment's, 
the enlistment in the industrial army would usually be for 
a term of years, perhaps three, or six, rather than subject 
to transfer at any time the worker desired it, as in those that 
are more sought after. There would, indeed, be a degree of 
hardship in this, to be overcome by greater advantages. But 
the exemption would most frequently be given in shorter 
hours of labor. . The men who toil in the heat of the ocean 
steamer's fire-room, or in the stifling air of the tunnel or the 
caisson, would have their shifts increased in number and 
reduced in length. This would mean also the enlistment of 
more laborers. In occupations, especially, which are marked 
by peril to life or health, each year spent in the service might 
count for a month or more deducted from the period required 
for promotion. This might bring the age of retirement 
sooner by months or years. 

Few might persevere in these unpleasant kinds of work 
through more than two or three re-enlistments, preferring 



THE GOLDEN RULE REPUBLIC. 87 

to change, and finish their years in something better. Bel- 
lamy suggested that every young man should be obliged to 
devote the first strength of his manhood, for three years, to 
the rudest labor. The plan here proposed would keep the 
ranks of the unattractive industrial companies filled with 
young men without compulsion. If a person kept on in a 
pursuit like sulphur-mining, powder-making, the manufac- 
ture of matches or poisonous chemicals, or even such noisome 
work as tanning or care of sewage, until he was released from 
the army, he might reach that point several years before the 
regular time. If his employment was of the worst, he might 
arrive at the retired list in half the number of years. Of 
course, however, the public interest would dictate rather that 
laborers should be enabled, by shorter hours or transfer to 
easier pursuits, to complete more nearly their natural term 
of service. There are other exemptions that would be prac- 
ticable and are familiar to us, from burdensome civic duties, 
such as serving on juries, or in offices that are not desired, 
or in war; but the ideal republic will not go very far in 
sanctioning a want of public spirit. 

We cannot imagine all the sorts of bounties that may 
be invented to sweeten unwelcome labor. Wherever the shifts, 
as, for instance, in some difficult mining, were reduced so 
far that their sum in a day was less than a day's work, there 
would be an indirect bounty, for a full day's work would be 
reckoned. The simplest form of bounty, a sum of money 
paid in any way except in the shape of wages, would be most 
convenient. It would be graduated according to experience 
of the supply and demand; and would differ from wages in 
being provided out of the appropriations for public service, 
and not being measured always by the hours of work, but 
often rather by the job or by the year. 

These cash inducements would have their place, but 
doubtless the preference would be given to an indefinite Vari- 
ety quite different, partaking more or less of the character 
of honors. Laborers in remote regions, subduing the stern- 
est elements of nature for the public benefit, might have a 
double portion conveyed to them, at any cost, of the home- 
comforts of life. The nation might well see to it that the 
children of miners, woodsmen, sailors, were given access to 



88 THE GOLDEN RULE REPUBLIC. 

the finest educational and social advantages of the cities, 
dwelling in the best of homes and under the wisest and ten- 
derest care, in the absence of their parents, — all supplied in 
cordial recognition of personal hardship borne faithfully for 
the common good. Nor would those be less carefully remem- 
bered who were engaged in odious tasks nearer to the centers 
of society. The house of the tanner might be made one of 
the choicest in the town; and the brass-polisher might be 
sent upon reviving vacations to breathe the pure air of the 
mountains or the sea. 

There would be distinctions bestowed for self-sacrific- 
ing labor, as honorable in the new society as those which 
soldiers have received for heroism in war. You might ob- 
serve some badge among the decorations worn upon the 
streets, and upon inquiry learn that it was the insignia of the 
survivors of those volunteers who worked in the great Straits 
tunnel: and "yonder/ 5 your informant would add proudly, 
"is the monument to the memory of those who died for the 
people in the same glorious enterprise." Does it seem too 
wild a fancy, this notion of scattering among laboring men 
such honors as have hitherto been reserved for very few be- 
sides the renowned and powerful? No; it does not, when 
the point of view is shifted to the ground of the Golden 
Eule. It would not mean an incongruous crowning of igno- 
rance and unfitness like the casting of pearls before swine; 
because, under the keen spurs of education and responsibil- 
ity, the masses would become as intelligent, self-respecting, 
dignified, as our soldiers or nobles are. The awards must 
never be cheapened by the least color of doubt whether they 
are well deserved: only let this be true, and they would 
appeal to human nature as effectively as ever. There are 
thousands who will do for public praise what they would 
not do for money. 

All these inducements could be employed in any com- 
bination or degree that might prove advisable. There are 
some other expedients still to be mentioned. Convict labor 
would create no such difficulties under the new order as it 
does at present. While the plain principles of justice would 
forbid assigning prisoners to tasks injurious to health, ad- 
ding thereby the peril of life to their sentences, it would be 



THE GOLDEN RULE REPUBLIC. 89 

entirely proper to make their penalties include the prospect 
of labor in disagreeable occupations. No criminal in the 
co-operative commonwealth would need to be taught some 
useful industry, unless he was very young, and the best way 
might be to set them at the kinds of work that men ordi- 
narily avoid. 

There is another policy, which might be followed we 
cannot foretell how long. Until the old world changes greatly, 
there will continue to be "inferior races," holding such posi- 
tion as the Chinese do in America, who could be hired by 
the commonwealth for the filthy or unwholesome work that 
must be done. It is probable that a rich community would 
be quite willing to exempt their young men from such labor 
by such help. There w r ould be a problem, however, for states- 
men to study, in the moral effects of such mercenary service. 
These "Gibeonites" ought to share equally with the citizens 
in the schools and all the civilizing influences of the state; 
and the tasks ought to be lightened for them as carefully 
as for our own sons. But how hard it is to insure obedience 
to the Golden Eule where the standing of the parties before 
the law is radically unequal ! If the policy resulted in train- 
ing our youth to look down upon such pursuits as dishon- 
orable, or if it established an inferior class in the social body 
to keep alive those class passions and prejudices which spring, 
like noxious weeds, at the slightest approach of slavery, then 
the relief would be purchased at too dear a cost. But we 
can imagine circumstances in which it would be justified, at 
least as a temporary measure. 

Now, surely, we have indicated enough available methods 
of solving nearly, if not completely, the whole difficulty in- 
volved in undesirable occupations. Still, it is supposable 
that neither ease, nor gifts, nor honors, may tempt the con- 
tented laborers to enter certain needful, but too offensive or 
hazardous lines of industry. There remains the resource of 
conscription, always peculiarly obnoxious to a free people. 
Let us look at the matter fairly. The principle of conscrip- 
tion is undeniably just; and there are ways of lessening the 
hatefulness of it in practice. The end desired in this case 
might be reached by a call restricted to the young men be- 
tween the ages of twenty-one &nd twenty-four. This would 



90 THE GOLDEN RULE REPUBLIC. 

at once obtain the proper quality of laborers; would be right 
and impartial; and would prevent opposition by the older 
men, who would appreciate the necessity, and yet might not 
willingly subject themselves to that ordeal. Those who were 
drawn should receive the most liberal treatment. Their 
terms should be short, and their conditions of life and labor 
as agreeable as possible; and fidelity and capacity should 
be promptly met with rewards. And finally, in summing up 
the question, we must place the number of conscripts, which 
never would be large, in comparison with the miserable situa- 
tions of those multitudes who are now engaged in such tasks, 
and of the other multitudes who would gladly find even such 
tasks to do. 

The day may come, anticipated by poets, when all the 
labor demanded by the nation will be coveted as a privilege, 
or, at least, an honor, and the shirk and the malingerer will 
be told of as oddities of the past; but until that day it may 
not be advisable to continue wages in full in all cases of 
sickness. Some plain distinctions will exist, of course, as in 
cases of accident. But there may be no necessity for going 
to the opposite extreme, and making no allowance for ill- 
health; although it should be remembered that sickness in 
a family under the new order would not reduce the allowances 
nor the pensions. The question may be left entirely to the 
wisdom of the local unions. 

The payment of dividends and allowances will call for 
some discreet regulation. It would not be wise, even if it 
were practicable, for the treasury to issue an entire year's 
dividend in a single payment. The wages of each laborer 
would be an allowance for the first year : then, for each year, 
the dividend on his labor of the year before: and he should 
receive these in regular weekly or monthly installments. If 
he incurred any forfeit, the penalty could be inflicted imme- 
diately, and the sum turned in to augment the general divi- 
dend of the current year. 

There may be as serious a problem in days of rest as 
in hours of labor. It is impossible for the state to attach a 
religious character to any day, or to hinder any individual 
from doing so in his private capacity, so long as the vital 
principle of religious liberty is maintained; but the indus- 



THE GOLDEN RULE REPUBLIC. 91 

trious millions, who are chiefly concerned, would easily agree 
in the observance of Sunday as a regular day of rest. We 
do not expect that civilization will ever lighten the burdens 
of labor sufficiently to do away with the need of a weekly 
sabbath. There are many interesting topics connected with 
vacations and festivals and sacred or memorial occasions, 
which may be considered when we treat of the citizen's right 
to recreation. 

There is another contingency which may deserve brief 
mention. Citizens of the new republic might gather up their 
♦ savings from the dividends and enter upon business ventures 
in foreign lands or seas. It is too probable that the example 
of a few fortunes made in this way would kindle the imagi- 
nation of multitudes. Then a popular fever would ensue for 
investment in all promising foreign schemes, until the in- 
creasing balance of losses brought its sobering effect. No 
harm to the commonwealth, beyond these losses, would fol- 
low, if the citizens had intelligence enough to prize their in- 
stitutions; nor is it easy to see what state of affairs would 
justify any legislative interference with individuals who chose 
to make such use or misuse of their own money. 



92 THE GOLDEN RULE REPUBLIC. 



WOMAN S WORK. 

Something must be said here upon woman's work. The 
key to that great subject has two wards, one of them turning 
on the respect due to the independent, human personality of 
woman, equal to man; the other, on that due to her nature 
as woman, distinct from the nature of man. These are prin- 
ciples to lead us far, and there must be no hesitation in fol- 
lowing them, for they are simple truth. But now, as to 
labor, the general conclusion to be deduced from them is 
plain ; women must take their part in the labor of the nation, 
and the part they take must be suited to them. They have 
been treated most unevenly; dwarfed either by overwork or 
by aimlessness. The Golden Eule republic would bid them 
choose their pursuits with every right and advantage that 
men enjoy, and let their living depend upon their diligence. 

It may be presumed that, in most cases, where men and 
women were engaged in the same industry, they would form 
separate labor unions. If, however, they chose to unite in 
the same organizations, of course upon equal terms, they 
could do so, under the regulation of the state legislature. 
But women ought to send their representatives to sit in the 
district councils, and women should be nominated in due 
proportion upon the Labor Commissions, entitled to their 
share in all proceedings. If laws upon any point are need- 
ful to secure such equality, such la,ws must be enacted. 

The freedom of women to select their occupations would 
be precisely the same as that of men; but, I think, no one 
seriously imagines that they will enter, in large numbers, 
into any calling involving rough or heavy labor. Neither 
would they be eligible for military service, except as nurses; 
nor would any conscription apply to them, unless for some 
service according to their kind of strength. Undoubtedly, 
women would join in the competitive examinations for places 



THE GOLDEN RULE REPUBLIC. 93 

in many of the most popular occupations, and would get 
their proper number of them. Some industries would be 
adopted by women exclusively, public sentiment governing 
the selection. 

It requires a certain degree of chivalry in men to recog- 
nize the facts of nature; and some will question whether, if 
society should become accustomed to such equality between 
the sexes, the same deference would be paid to women as 
the best part of the world has attained to now. It was Jean 
Ingelow who said that she would rather have her privileges 
than her rights, and the women are not few who agree with 
her. More than one answer to the question arises; but in 
this connection we can only remark that there would be no 
greater competition between men and women than we see 
around us, and the contest would be neutralized of its bit- 
terness by the knowledge that no vital stake was pending. 
The disappointed ones would be sure of employment, and of 
as good a living as their successful rivals, and would know 
that, with persistence, they themselves might obtain their 
choice. Men would not lose their courtesy toward women 
without reason or motive; but they would have less reason 
or motive to do so than at present. And ladies like Miss 
Ingelow ought to remember how many women there are who 
have very few privileges, and are perishing for lack of rights. 

The center of the problem as to woman's work lies in 
its relation to her domestic duties. Under socialism, the 
solution is easy. If any woman were pleased to continue in 
the industrial army, she would draw the full dividend of her 
grade to the end of her days of service. But a supreme law 
of nature prescribes for women, as their peculiar vocation, 
the care of their own children, and the guidance of the home. 
Here is work laid out for many years of life. If the com- 
monwealth can afford to pension all women in charge of 
households with the full dividend, there are no laborers more 
richly worthy of such compensation. But it is true that a 
husband and wife can live better on the same amount of 
money than two separate persons, and it is therefore fair 
that a smaller allowance should be given to the wife, as she 
is not in the army. If there were children, the allowance 
to each one of them would enlarge the family income; and 



94 THE GOLDEN KULE REPUBLIC. 

if the mother found time for productive labor in addition 
to her home cares, she would receive the full dividend for 
everv hour. 



THE GOLDEN RULE REPUBLIC. 95 



ORDER IN PRODUCTION. 

Enterprises in production might originate in various ways. 
The federal Department of Production would have for its 
business to lay out the whole field of productive industry, 
and would embrace bureaus for men of scientific training 
and expert men of affairs, who should collect information 
upon their topics from all quarters of the world, and then 
should submit their report's and proposed measures to the 
Labor Commissioners of the several states, aiming to dis- 
perse as many kinds of production as may be practicable 
through all parts of the Union. When the proposals are 
made acceptable to the Commissioners, it would be their 
duty to present them to the local unions for acceptance, and 
then the district councils would see that they were put into 
effective operation. It would be no less orderly, and might 
be as common, for propositions and detailed plans to origi- 
nate with a state board, or a local union, and to be submitted 
by them to the Department. Ultimate acceptance of a scheme 
would rest with the unions, as the people who do the work, 
but the option of furnishing the land and capital would rest 
with the federal authorities; and so there must be concur- 
rence. Opinions may differ, and strong wills may give trou- 
ble; nevertheless, the liberty of equal rights to attain mutual 
satisfaction is the best way in the end. Differences will not 
easily become embittered, if there are no class lines to bound 
them. We have dwelt already, at sufficient length, upon the 
manner in which individuals may take the initiative in en- 
terprises for production. 

Orders for work would proceed, in general, from the 
federal Bureau of Apportionment, which, acting upon data 
furnished by the Bureau of Estimates, would call upon the 
central authorities of each guild in every state for certain 
quantities of its appropriate products, or certain amounts 



96 THE GOLDEN RULE REPUBLIC. 

of work of its own kind. The local unions would keep their 
representatives in the higher labor councils advised of their 
wishes and capacity for work, and these, in turn, would make 
the distribution as evenly and impartially as possible. Since 
the estimates were constructed for the very purpose of em- 
ploying the available time and strength and skill of the 
people, the result will be that all hands will be busy and 
none will be overburdened. Whatever task, of their chosen 
description, may be assigned to them, the union or the in- 
dividual or the partnership would have to accept, and to 
fulfill it satisfactorily, under inspection, as happens now in 
many cases, by the federal or state bureau or other parties 
from whom the order may come. 

A vast amount of public work would be wanted by every 
executive, from the heads of federal departments down to 
the trustees of a school district, and they would have to 
present their orders (within the limit's granted them from 
the federal treasury) to local unions, either directly or 
through the higher labor authorities; and for all such work 
the unions must render account and obtain credit with the 
federal bureau, whose duty it is to apportion the dividends. 
Any person anywhere could go to a union to get a job done; 
in fact, most likely, there would be nowhere else to go; but 
he would himself pay for the job, only the price would be 
less by all that is now charged for rent, interest, and profit; 
and all moneys received by the unions or by other parties, 
who share in the dividends, should be covered into the fed- 
eral treasury. 



THE GOLDEN RULE REPUBLIC. 97 



THE DISTRIBUTION OF PRODUCTS. 

We have devoted the more space to these (perhaps rather 
dry) details upon the organization of productive industries, 
because doubts and controversies have gathered chiefly about 
this branch of our subject. But two other departments of 
labor remain to be considered, those of Distribution and 
Public Service. The task of nationalization would here be 
half prepared, and comparatively easy. 

The problem of distributing the product's of the coun- 
try involves their collection first, and their proper storage. 
The entire passage, from the producer to the consumer, would 
be directed by the department at Washington. All the work- 
ers engaged in distribution would be formed into unions, 
upon the same general model as in the Department of Pro- 
duction. The federal authorities would outline the system; 
locate the collecting agencies, warehouses, stores and markets ; 
and determine what and how many employees were required. 
The state or local authorities, as the case may be, would 
approve or object to these propositions of the department, 
making their own free suggestions, which must be heeded, 
and framing rules for local interests. 

Main lines of production, widely different, as grain, 
minerals, textiles, would each have a bureau of distribution, 
while warehouses corresponding to these would be located 
at convenient centers throughout the land. In the cities 
there would be "department stores" for retail trade, or other 
arrangements at the preference of the community. In the 
country, at points within reach of every citizen, there would 
be a group of shops and stores: the "general country store,"' 
with fulness and freshness of stock and facilities for busi- 
ness undreamed-of by the proprietor or customers of our day, 
and around it such a variety of artisans and public servants 
as are likewise unknown in our rural districts. Freight 



98 THE GOLDEN RULE REPUBLIC. 

charges, we have assumed, would be abolished; but, inasmuch 
as the costs of transportation must be borne by the whole 
people, it would be equitable to restrict the range of mer- 
chandise kept in these depositories. If the demand for cer- 
tain articles in a little village did not reach a specified amount, 
they would be supplied only by order from a city. 

Commerce would belong to the department of Distri- 
bution. A steamer or sailing vessel would hold relations 
with the seamen's guild like a floating warehouse, with cap- 
tain and mates for superintendent and chiefs of divisions, 
and all hands receiving salaries, identical with the dividend, 
under contracts by the voyage or the season. The condition 
of sailors would alter greatly for the better, but, from the 
nature of the case, there must be discipline on shipboard 
as strict as ever, although not as severe. Obedience may be 
none the less perfect for a basis of goodwill, resting in its 
turn upon justice. 

Individual initiative would probably find less room for 
activity in Distribution and Public Service than it would 
in Production. This insures the antagonism of many to 
socialism, for the money-making instinct delights in noth- 
ing else so much as in merchandise. But socialism does not 
depend on the money-making spirit. Lines of individual 
initiative, similar to those which have been suggested for the 
department of Production, should be opened by the other 
departments wherever practicable; but the opportunities 
would seem to be limited and few, except as to the manage- 
ment of vessels. The seaman's profession would rise to a 
higher dignity than ever before, though all the profits would 
go into the treasury of the commonwealth. 

Commercial operations on the grand scale required for 
a nation's annual supplies from abroad, would be planned 
as quickly and accurately as the estimates for annual pro- 
duction. The same agencies would serve. It is easy to see 
that the errors would be less than they can be where shippers 
and importers are venturing blindly in competition with one 
another. The magnitude of the transactions would give a 
prodigious advantage. Economies would become immense 
when an agent of the republic might buy at a stroke all the 
silk to be exported from Italy, or the whole tea crop of 



THE GOLDEN RULE REPUBLIC. 99 

Assam. The balancing of exports with imports would be 
accomplished far better than it can be now, because the 
Bureau of Commerce would know the actual demands as well 
as resources of the entire people. 

A difficulty that is not felt in our competitive society 
would be encountered in disposing of inferior goods. Every- 
body would want the best grade of every article. More first- 
class work would be done than ever before, because every in- 
ducement would tell that way, and all motive for scamping a 
job would be removed. Still, a certain proportion of second or 
lower grades of many products is unavoidable, and means 
would have to be devised to make use of them. Much could 
be sold at low prices; some, exported; more could be worked 
over. Whatever losses the balance of accounts might show, 
they would be trifling to the monstrous waste from which 
we suffer under our present anarchical regime. 

As for the savings that would follow upon a harmonious 
commercial system, we cannot begin to enumerate them. No 
more spending money and labor in useless duplication; no 
more bankruptcies and forced sales; no more gambling haz- 
ards, or helpless and killing uncertainties; no more terrible 
financial crises ; in one word, no more war, hypocritical, peace- 
pretending war. Advertisements would occupy only a corner 
or two in the daily paper; huge signs and bill-boards would 
no longer offend the eyes, and the face of nature would be 
cleansed of its preposterous patches. We should have price 
lists of everything for sale, issued as often as needed, and 
replete with information. The government would employ 
attractive methods to introduce new inventions and products 
of value to the notice of the public ; but the expense of such 
advertising would be small in comparison with what we see. 
In all this vast business there would be no losses through bad 
debts. What millions upon millions are in this item of 
economy! No difficulty would be found in holding strictly 
to cash dealings, where every persons income was given by 
the dividend. But we will go no farther with the subject 
of Distribution in the new commonwealth. The department 
would be easier to administer than the commissariat of a 
great army during an active campaign. 

Lore 



100 THE GOLDEN RULE REPUBLIC. 



THE PUBLIC SERVICE. 

The remaining division of Labor, the Public Service, 
possesses many features of peculiar interest. Every kind of 
labor under socialism would really be a part of the public 
service, but a distinction would be drawn between those 
workers whose labor is directly connected with production, 
or with the distribution of products, and those who are en- 
gaged in serving other people, either indirectly, like the 
clerks in the government offices, or the workers of all ranks 
employed upon railroads or other public utilities ; or directly, 
like a barber, or a liveryman, or a physician, or a teacher. 
Not seldom an occupation would answer, by turns, the pur- 
poses both of production and public service, and its inclusion 
in the one department or the other would be settled mainly 
by convenience. The same organization, in local unions and 
district councils, which we have already described, would pre- 
vail here also, with the same general rules, modified to suit 
the circumstances, concerning enrollment, discipline and pro- 
motion. Every federal, or state, or local official would belong 
to some union ; and if connection with it were severed during 
his term of official service, he would return to it when the 
term was ended. 

Prom president to constable, the compensation would 
be uniform, namely, the dividend and official expenses. Doubt- 
less, that feeling of personal pride in the glory of the nation, 
which is strong in America and would be strongest in the 
Golden Eule republic, would be the guaranty of liberal allow- 
ances to the chief executive and others high in official sta- 
tion, enabling them to discharge their functions with becom- 
ing dignity. But this alone, and not their individual enrich- 
ment, would be the object. If a man had attained promo- 
tion before assuming office, he would still receive his proper 
dividend. Further promotion, step by step, to the maximum, 



THE (JOLDEN RULE REPUBLIC. 101 

would follow in due time, if he continued in office; or, per- 
haps, in certain cases, it might be given upon successive re- 
elections as in recognition of that honor. 

But the most striking feature of the social common- 
wealth to the traveler's eye would be the remarkable expan- 
sion of public utilities. If I understand rightly the applica- 
tion of the Golden Eule, it means that all men ought to do 
for each other, in brotherly kindness, whatever each man can- 
not as well do for himself. This is so wide a statement that 
immediately it will receive diverse interpretations, one the- 
orist pushing it to the extremest communism, while another 
claims earnestly that nothing is as well done for any man 
as what he does for himself. Let us note, at this point, that, 
however tremendous the changes in our social order proposed 
in this book may appear to be, they are not in the nature 
of a cataclysm, but every one of them, however suddenly it 
might be achieved, would be merely an evolution from things 
familiar. Nor is anything of an opposite sort imaginable 
in our United States, at least until the suffrage and the 
public schools begin to be subverted. 

What is it that the citizen is unable to do as well for 
himself? The people will answer that question as each in- 
stance arises; wisely, too, if they decide with fearless com- 
mon sense, under the light of the Golden Eule. Let one 
more postulate be assumed: that making and saving money 
is not the whole of doing well. The question for the moment 
then may be of education, and the people have already an- 
swered it by the free public schools. It may be of the trans- 
mission of intelligence, and they have answered by the na- 
tional postal system. There is no common sense in their 
leaving the telegraph and the telephone still in private hands. 
The extension of the public service to these utilities is in- 
evitable. Agitation will assuredly secure it; and this victory 
will prove only the beginning of reforms. The prevailing 
fear lest such a host of government employees might bring 
the whole country under boss rule depends upon an infer- 
ence from our present conditions to others that would be 
entirely different. All labor would be for the public, and 
subject to the same civil service rules ; there would be no more 
room for politics and "pulls" in railroading than in shoe- 



102 THE GOLDEN RULE REPUBLIC. 

making, no profits in either for anybody. Superintendents 
and other officials might receive pay by the month instead 
of by the hour, but it would amount only to the dividend. 

As for the many suggestions I have made (and a hun- 
dred more that will occur to the reader) of advantages, pleas- 
ures, luxuries to be placed, by national appropriations, at the 
command of all the citizens alike, let them be tried by the 
same principle. I have suggested that all transportation of 
persons or goods should not only be nationalized, but made 
free. An enormous increase of travel would ensue. But the 
tide would soon reach its height, and would decline to a 
natural level, because the same necessity of labor would con- 
trol men as now, although in conditions so much pleasanter. 
And, whatever the additional expense might be, if within 
practicable limits, as I believe it would be, the gain would 
richly repay the cost. The same would be true of the sug- 
gestion that the mails and other means of communication 
should also be made free. How incalculable would be the 
elevating influence of such measures, which men could not 
take for themselves! 

Perhaps these are the largest items in the grand scheme 
for the public service. Even more important, however, is 
the system of free education, which is maintained today by 
separate action of the several states, but which seems too 
vital to the entire nation to lack that unity of progress which 
is possible only if it is put into the federal hands. For 
this reason it is proposed that the schools of every grade 
shall be centralized like the railway and postal system. There 
would be a constant regard to local preferences as to edu- 
cational matters, just as in railroad matters the wishes of 
each locality would be consulted to a degree now quite un- 
heard-of, because the real supremacy of the people would 
be felt everywhere. But the standard for the most backward 
state might be fixed by the best forces of the nation, while, 
if any state was ready to push forward to a yet higher mark, 
it would be at liberty to do so. There would also, of course, 
be scientific bureaus, libraries, art galleries, museums, parks 
and so on, besides military posts, harbor improvements, light 
houses and other institutions, all belonging to the federal 
government, or reckoned under its exclusive control. 



THE GOLDEN RULE REPUBLIC. 103 

The various penal institutions, and the ample provisions 
made in hospitals and asylums for every form of sickness 
and infirmity, and for the wants of childhood or old age, 
would constitute another department in the public service. 
Plans and regulations would be developed by the federal 
bureaus, but the management would be referred to the state 
or local authorities. These institutions would not be free 
in all cases. The stranger or alien who was destitute, or the 
member of the industrial army who was disabled from labor, 
would be entitled to the benefit of hospitals or homes or 
sanatoriums without charge. Others would have to pay the 
cost of what they receive. No indulgence to lazy pretence 
or silliness may be expected, for the physicians with the rest 
of the community must bear the expense; while strong as- 
surance of the highest intelligent humanity would be af- 
forded by the fact that all classes and ranks of the people 
would look to these places, not with repugnance, but as to 
their own resort in any hour of need. 

We come next to institutions designed for local uses 
only. It is proposed that a wide variety of things that are 
suited to perform the functions of public utilities shall be 
furnished by the community to all citizens free of charge, 
the expenditure to be defrayed by appropriations from the 
national treasury. Some of these things, for example, high- 
ways and main lines of drainage, have long been treated .so 
to a greater or less extent. The plan is reasonable and ac- 
ceptable, and we say, therefore, let it be carried to comple- 
tion. The usual list of public works is by far too short. 
As we have suggested in section 2, upon the citizen^ living, 
not only water, but light and heat should be supplied in 
the free public service. And with these essentials, other con- 
veniences might be united. Perhaps, for example, munici- 
palities would choose to lessen expenses to individuals and 
encourage neatness and economy by providing for repair 
work of many kinds without charge. 

The commonwealth should not and could not give to 
any of its able-bodied citizens a gratuitous living; the at- 
tempt to do so would contradict its fundamental principle, 
that every one should receive according to his own labor. 
But this is entirely consistent with the supply of many aids 



104 THE GOLDEN RULE REPUBLIC. 

and comforts to living, through the public service, upon a 
scale of perfection and cheapness that otherwise, for the 
average man or family, would be impossible. 

In every town, and at intervals over the country, ex- 
cellent provision should be made to entertain travelers. At 
the chief points of concourse there should be hotels and lodg- 
ing houses and restaurants; none, probably, equalling some 
of our huge caravansaries in splendor, but none of them in- 
ferior to the very first class in comfortable appointments and 
good taste. Guests at these hostelries would be served at 
cost. Domestic labor would be lightened by public laundries 
and kitchens, where the best of work would be furnished 
and delivered at cost. Bakeries would, in like manner, sup- 
ply qualities and kinds of bread and cakes to which the most 
of our population are strangers. If any community desired 
to establish a communal table, they could do so; but they 
could not compel unwilling parties to share in it. No in- 
terference with the independent home life of the family 
would be tolerated. At times, however, the most efficient 
housewife would require help about her sewing, or in occa- 
sions of sickness and emergency. There would be women, 
connected with the lowest grade of some union, whom sho 
might call to her assistance. This kind of public service, by 
women and for women, would correspond to the plan already 
spoken of, for a body of men to answer the demand for 
common laborers. 

There are various industries which resemble personal 
service, and yet, being non-productive, and maintained for 
the public benefit, the public service would probably include 
them. Such are the occupations of the barber, the livery- 
man, the farrier, the porter or truckman. These are legiti- 
mate wants, to be provided for by the commonwealth, but 
whether severally at a fixed scale of charges or free of charge 
the federal authorities must determine. 

There is another, different class of things, which the in- 
dividual cannot do as well for himself. It is not right for 
us to leave those who are visited with misfortune to bear the 
burden alone. Physicians should receive a salary equivalent 
to the dividend in lieu of fees. And further, it is only just 
that a citizen who is wronged should have legal counsel af- 



THE GOLDEN RULE REPUBLIC. 105 

forded him, and as it cannot be determined beforehand who 
is in the right, and the present custom of employing lawyers 
lends a powerful incentive to unfair pleading, it follows that 
counsel for both sides should be salaried like physicians. Jus- 
tice ought to be rendered wholly without charge. Preliminary 
"courts of conciliation" are better to avert litigation than 
fees and costs. The plan of compensation by a salary, ad- 
vanced by regular steps, would apply to engineers, teachers, 
and a good many other public servants; it would be the 
general form of the dividend for professional men. 

We cannot enter far into the wide range of provisions 
which the commonwealth might inaugurate for the culture 
and recreation of its citizens. There is no more appropriate 
domain for the social principle than many of these things, 
which the citizen, evidently, cannot provide as well for him- 
self. But they would not, as a rule, be subject for federal 
action, except in response to local initiative. The people of 
every state, or more likely, of every municipality, would de- 
cide how far to pursue such measures. They would call 
upon Congress for appropriations, which would be discussed 
in committees, and granted in due proportion, and the funds 
would then be employed according to the wisdom of the 
applicants. Very many of these institutions or arrange- 
ments for the popular welfare and pleasure ought to be en- 
tirely free; but we must consider the question farther on 
a later page. It is sufficient now to emphasize the aim of 
our ideal commonwealth to endow its citizens with privileges 
afforded at the public cost, in such abundance that even the 
slender income of the lowest dividend would enable one to 
enjoy the resources of wealth, and more, to have not a few 
luxuries at command which, in our day, are wellnigh lim- 
ited to kings. 

Throughout the nation, in every department of labor, 
and without any essential variations, the same system would 
prevail : everywhere men would feel the same firm, yet flexi- 
ble union of liberty with authority. Is it merely an ideal? 
What is there in it that is impracticable? No difficulty has 
been evaded, and no advantage overstated, knowingly. We 
understand fully that, when the old order of competition is 
supplanted, the new order will be a resultant of many forces 



106 THE GOLDEN RULE REPUBLIC. 

and not the rounded and polished product of quiet study. 
We remember that our federal constitution was a compro- 
mise. It is of the utmost importance, however, to have defi- 
nite propositions for discussion; and such bases for agita- 
tion and argument, leading to substantial results, it is hoped 
this book may contribute to supply. 



Till: GOLDEN RULE REPUBLIC. 107 



§ 11. IS THE SYSTEM HEEE PRESENTED 
FEASIBLE ? 

If the plans detailed here are impracticable, it 
must be that the people either cannot or will not execute 
them. Are the plans too complicated? Compare and see 
if they do not substitute for an indescribable and increasing 
complexity one general system, and this no more difficult to 
master than what the masses are dealing with in business 
or politics, or imposing upon themselves in fraternal socie- 
ties. Take the magnitude of the field into account, and the 
gain in simplicity appears enormous. 

Would the degree of virtue required be too high for the 
majority? Nothing would be demanded of any man above 
the ordinary standard of good citizenship. He must behave 
as a good citizen does now, and obey the laws, and that is 
all. If the people are not sufficiently removed from savages 
to prefer peace to war; if they cling to the savage habit of 
seizing immediate gratification with blind recklessness of en- 
suing loss; if they are not yet civilized enough to dwell in 
union under the bond of law ; then, indeed, the rule of a mon- 
arch or a financier is the only way for them. But there is rea- 
son to believe that the providential training of our people 
during almost three centuries is not in vain. There is less 
intolerance in our country than there was a hundred years 
ago. When the party which embraced the most uneducated 
and explosive classes gave that signal example of submission 
to the forms of law in the memorable Electoral Commission 
of 1876, the world wondered. There could be no grander 
evidence of the fitness of the nation for complete self-gov- 
ernment. The trouble that may arise from the lack of 
political virtue will not spring from the majority. Lawless, 
violent resistance to the nationalization of labor is not likely 
to proceed from the common people. It may be expected 



108 THE GOLDEN RULE REPUBLIC. 

from the fortunate few; but the majority, if large and united 
enough, will carry their point. 

Are the expenditures proposed, in pensions and appro- 
priations, too extravagant for the national resources; or is 
the system, by its vastness, too cumbersome to be permanent? 
We may repeat the suggestion that the co-operative common- 
wealth, like everybody else, would "cut the coat according 
to the cloth." All these costly parts are not essential to the 
design. One thing is certain: that the productive energy of 
our people is equal to creating immensely more, each year, 
than would give to every individual of them a thoroughly 
comfortable living. Enough, at least, is practicable to make 
the new dispensation one of happiness to all. 

But are the proposals, as they stand, too lavish to be re- 
alized? Transportation means the same outlay of labor and 
material, whether paid for from a public or a private purse; 
and so with every other item in our long catalogue of ad- 
vantages under socialism. The only expense to be consid- 
ered here is the augmentation of their use when they are free 
to all; but this is simply the price of greater enjoyment of 
life to the greatest number. Pensions mean that those per- 
sons who must be supported by others would receive a better 
and more independent living than the most of them would 
ever attain to otherwise. Here, again, we have to look only 
at the increased outlay occasioned by better living; and 
again it is the price to be paid for happiness. For this reason, 
too, because the entire body of citizens would, by these meas- 
ures, possess an incomparably broader and brighter life than 
falls to the lot of any among us save a few, and better, in 
many respects, than they can enjoy, the commonwealth would 
choose to spend its revenues liberally upon the public service 
rather than to declare a larger special dividend. The ma- 
jority would, surely, prefer to have it so. No one could ap- 
proach to so many luxuries by his own private income. 

But the question is not yet answered, whether the scheme 
proposed can be carried out in sufficient fulness to satisfy 
the people. The experiment is great and untried. We can 
say only that, in view of the prodigious waste attending our 
competitive warfare, and the corresponding economies that 
would follow upon a national system of labor; in view of 



THE GOLDEN RULE REPUBLIC. 109 

the rapidly advancing rate of productiveness, as human en- 
ergies are multiplied by continual discoveries and inventions ; 
and, best of all, in view of the sure prospective increase !n 
that ratio of material progress when the nation's chief in- 
terest shall be the highest improvement of all its citizens, 
it seems probable that, after allowance is made for every 
fair deduction, the surplus of wealth above subsistence would 
be sufficient for the public service. Even if the whole scheme 
were not realized at once, important part's of it would be, 
enough to convince the most skeptical that its ways for him 
were pleasantness and peace. And every detail, with more 
that we cannot now think of, may come, for the first genera- 
tion that grows up from childhood in the benign air of the 
Golden Eule republic, to be the commonplace of daily liv- 
ing, — so rapid would be the accumulation of wealth. 

Must we fear that such a purely fraternal union of states 
would fall asunder from its own magnitude, under the pres- 
sure of sectional interests? One hundred years ago, this 
would have been a question hard to answer, except "a priori" ; 
but we now can argue from accomplished facts. Such a 
union, our own federal republic, has extended to an area ten 
times larger than its original dimensions, which were them- 
selves deemed perilous, and still the national heart beats with 
equal pulse throughout its borders. We know what has done 
it, the well-defined combining of local with general govern- 
ment, and the supreme authority of the people everywhere. 
But in these respects the new order would be much nearer 
perfect. There is a residue of inconsistency with these prin- 
ciples in our institutions, which socialism would purge away. 

But this is not all the advantage of the new order, nor 
the best. We have internal dissensions today that might 
sever the east from the west or the south but for the stronger 
national feeling that rises above and overmasters them. See 
now the superiority of the co-operative commonwealth. There 
would be no sectional interests in the pecuniary sense, noth- 
ing to fan the coals of jealousy, because, the national re- 
sources would belong, not in theory only, but practically, 
alike to all. Selfishness itself would be enlisted upon the 
right side, for the interests of all would be the interests of 
each one. So long as the dividend is maintained, such antag- 



110 THE GOLDEN RULE REPUBLIC. 

onisms would be impossible, and increasing numbers would 
give increasing advantage, strength and security, even if they 
were expanded to the total of mankind. So long as the 
principle of mutual help is maintained, the emphasis is laid 
upon man, and not upon lands or money, and the fruit of 
the system would be the greatest good of the greatest num- 
ber without measure and without end. 



THE GOLDEN RULE REPUBLIC, til 



§ 12. THE EIGHT TO A GOOD GOVEBNMENT. 

The weightiest part of our task is done, and yet 
how much remains to do! Labor and living, property and 
Home, comprehend the substance of life for each man, and 
therefore for the nation; but they are far from covering all. 
We have a throng of questions before us, any one of which 
may become, for the moment, the most engrossing. Our 
topic next in order shall be the citizen's right to a good gov- 
ernment. 

We do not so much intend to propose a complete new 
system as to suggest amendments needed upon the system 
we now have. Liberty has made larger advances in govern- 
ment than in business. It may be a little surprising to know 
that the full establishment of socialism can be effected with- 
out the repeal of a single word in the Constitution of 1783, 
or in its Amendments. A good many clauses in the vener- 
able document would be superseded, as some have already 
been in the progress of events; and several alterations would 
be most desirable. But the immense revolution in the tenor 
of daily life, which socialism implies, might be accomplished 
in pursuance of statutes without contravening the Constitu- 
tion of the United States, or (I believe) of any state. 
Whether precedents have been established, under which Con- 
gress may be permitted to enter upon the nationalization of 
industry without a clause in the Constitution expressly con- 
ferring such power, the courts, and the people, must decide. 
Sooner or later, the principles of socialism must be embodied 
in the organic law. 

The two chief points in which the Constitution falls 
short of its fundamental principle of popular sovereignty are 
the election of senators by the state legislatures and the ap- 
pointment of the federal judges by the executive. That these 
provisions have worked §g well hitherto as they have is no 



112 THE GOLDEN RULE REPUBLIC. 

disproof of this. Both are beginning to show their weak- 
ness; and the former, in particular, has become the sub- 
ject of such anxious discussion that some change for the 
better is probable. Of the judiciary we wish to speak far- 
ther on. 

Legislative methods would be chiefly affected by the ini- 
tiative and the referendum, companion measures, which apply 
perfectly to any subject the people understand, and without 
which safeguards no right of the people is permanently se- 
cure — a brief chain of reasoning having one conclusion, to 
wit, that the people must understand everything it concerns 
them to know. And they can. The initiative would compel 
our legislators to give at least a respectful consideration to 
the wishes of even a minority of the people, such as, under 
present rules, a majority cannot always obtain. By the ref- 
erendum, the people would enjoy their first experience of a 
full, direct control over their own public affairs; and, if it 
is disputed whether they are fit or unfit to govern them- 
selves, a fair trial of this talisman will reveal the truth. In 
the name of all truth and justice, let the trial be made. 
Complete majority rule would work as well here as it does 
in Switzerland. We do not attempt to describe these meas- 
ures in detail; but they would not, in the end, even occa- 
sion additional trouble to the voters, for political bargainers 
would not venture to risk that final incorruptible review. 
Offenses would grow rare, as they are wont to do when a 
school, by a change of masters, is brought under good dis- 
cipline. Legislation, in the new social order, would be so 
diminished in amount by the annulling of corporations and 
vested interests and the distribution of so many powers among 
various labor councils that every bill presented might receive 
proper attention from the whole assembly. 

The effect of the referendum and initiative upon our 
existing method of government by parties must be left io 
the event of time; yet we may give to it a word in passing. 
There is no reason to expect that parties would be laid aside ; 
but they would be largely shorn of power and prestige. What 
is the cause of their present remarkable cohesion? There is 
a chieftain, or boss ; and around him his henchmen, making 



THE GOLDEN RULE REPUBLIC. 113 

a real clan, and with these a variable number of voters at- 
tached to the party by motives of -uncertain strength. These 
last are, in many cases, extremely loyal; but the others form 
the disciplined center of the host, upon whom all depends. 
The general body of voters are led by choice of policy, if there 
is a difference in that respect between the parties ; or, failing 
that, by an opinion that their own candidates would manage 
affairs better than those of the opposite side; or else they 
act merely from association and habit. But all such motives 
are liable to give way to fresh convictions. The one addi- 
tional bond that holds the central bodyguard steady is per- 
sonal, selfish interest; but it must be remembered that, apart 
from corrupt covetings, which tend to increase, there is also 
a legitimate demand for money in carrying on political cam- 
paigns. 

Now socialism would weaken party ties in three ways : 
first, by elevating the people to a degree of intelligence that 
bosses do not want and cannot bear; second, by breaking 
up the sources of the heavy contributions to party funds; 
and, third, by shifting the patronage from the leaders to the 
people, by means of civil service regulations and the man- 
date. What would be the result of all this ? There would be 
parties still; but the chiefs could neither bestow offices with 
certainty nor wealth upon their adherents, and consequently, 
instead of our century-long continuity and pride of party 
organization regardless of principles, we should probably wit- 
ness a succession of "groups," rallying about distinguished 
men or pending issues and dissolving and gathering anew 
as men and issues change. 

A very important application of the socialistic princi- 
ple that manhood is more than money would appear in the 
division of the surplus remaining annually above the divi- 
dend. Part of this, as Congress might determine, would 
have to be expended in public w^orks, scattered through all 
the states, but subject to the federal jurisdiction. The resi- 
due Congress would allot to the several states, not in the 
ratio of the respective values of their products, but accord- 
ing to the number of hours of labor, with increase for each 
higher grade, exactly upon the plan of the dividend. Special 



114 THE GOLDEN RULE REPUBLIC. 

appropriations to meet exceptional cases would be made as 
readily as now. But, in any case, no state or district would 
suffer because the products of its people, though necessary to 
the general welfare, were less highly priced than those of 
more fortunate regions. 

This appropriation from the surplus to the states would 
be strictly returning to them what was their due, and, there- 
fore, they might apply the money at their own pleasure. But 
again the ever present thought of brotherhood would exert 
its influence, novel at first in such manifold uses, but surely 
welcomed as it became familiar. The unity of interest created 
by the dividend would lead to unity in other relations than 
labor, and the federal government, in which the hands of all 
are joined, would be the common point of these less material 
interchanges. While the principle of local autonomy would 
be too essential to allow dictation, the very mission of the 
federal departments would be to furnish freely the best of 
inspiration, plans and counsel. It is so now, to an extent 
that is hardly appreciated, but the scope of such activities 
would then be widened greatly. Did any state intend to 
remodel sundry of their benevolent institutions, or a county 
or a city propose to erect a hall for their guilds, or a "peo- 
ple's palace/' they would lay their plans in consultation with 
appropriate bureaus at Washington and the conclusions 
drawn, together with subsequent reports of their experience, 
would be kept, by law, in the same bureaus for the future 
benefit of others. Did a state or a municipality fall short 
in any point of their proper care for the improvement of the 
citizen in character or happiness, the matter would be taken 
up in brotherly feeling among the whole people, and some 
department at Washington would be the people's magazine, 
agency and ally for the instruments of argument and per- 
suasion by which to repair the wrong. 

There is one subject of legislative action which demands) 
a word of comment. The power of taxing resides naturally 
in any fully organized civil society, and no less under social- 
ism than at present. It would be lawful for a school dis- 
trict to add to the appropriation it receives, or a township 
or a county might raise funds by taxation for some object 



THE GOLDEN RULE REPUBLIC. 115 

overlooked by the government; although the comprehensive 
use to be made of the annual surplus in the public service 
would leave only a narrow margin of occasions for direct 
taxes. Tariffs would be a legitimate resource for more than 
one purpose; but the historic fact that over-production of 
useful articles (which, at the same moment, multitudes of 
our own people are in need of) is feared as a dangerous, 
panic-making thing, a peril to be averted by stopping produc- 
tion, or negotiating or fighting for foreign markets, while 
our own people, by millions, go naked and hungry — a fact 
which has directed the financial policy of nations in the 
famous nineteenth century and even later — will be read by 
our descendants after the lapse of one or two enlightened 
generations with doubts as to either the sanity or the hu- 
manity of their ancestors. 

Two important fields of legislation, — education and di- 
vorce, — ought to be withdrawn from the states and added to 
the powers of the federal Congress. The subject of educa- 
tion is too vital to be left one hand's breadth out of reach 
of the noblest spirits in the whole nation. The finest minds 
would gain, in the new social order, a more direct approach 
than ever before to the springs of public action. The stand- 
ard of education established by a government so absolutely 
popular would be level with the average standard in the 
thoughts of the people ; but there would be nothing to hinder 
this standard from being steadily raised. Education would 
not be allowed to sink below the national standard more in 
one state than in another. If, however, any community were 
disposed to maintain still better schools, there would be noth- 
ing in the world to hinder. The way upward would be open. 

But the national oversight of education, so far as it is 
compulsory, would be restricted (with certain exceptions) 
to the courses which are included within the years of minor- 
ity. How far this would extend, and what studies and. ex- 
ercises would be pursued, may be answered by the depart- 
ment of Education, under limits prescribed by Congress. The 
individual application of any curriculum would be varied 
according to the capacity and disposition of children or youth. 
Technical and professional schools, as well as every kind of 



116 THE GOLDEX EULE REPUBLIC. 

apprenticeship, would be embraced under federal charge, and 
probably also a considerable range of free academic study 
in advance of that compulsory education in the grammar 
schools which all children can and therefore must receive. 
There is a wide domain of liberal culture beyond this, in 
colleges and universities and schools of pure art, and the 
treasures of libraries and museums, and in the realms of 
nature and society, in which the states might vie with each 
other and with the nation. For the nation would be en- 
gaged in science, art and letters more than now, and Wash- 
ington would become a focus for the genius of the world. 

The integrity of the family and the purity of the home 
are interests too great to be endangered by want of unity in 
legislation. Evil has been wrought already by the incon- 
gruity of the laws relating to divorce in the different states, 
and a very strong sentiment favors placing this question 
under national control. 

The states would retain their essential rank in our 
political system; although the removal of prerogatives above 
mentioned, and the reposing of such vast new tracts of au- 
thority over land and labor and their products in the federal 
hands would be likely to render the position of the states 
less conspicuous. But the American idea of the nation and 
the states must be preserved. All of the new responsibility 
that can properly be laid upon the states (or upon smaller 
political divisions) for the sake of local autonomy must be 
left there. There would be additions to the powers of the 
state, in labor commissions and councils, enough to counter- 
balance much of the power transferred to Washington. The 
saying of Jefferson would no longer be correct, that the fed- 
eral government was nothing more than the American depart- 
ment of foreign affairs. Quite the reverse : the new social or- 
der would bring every citizen into dealings with the nation 
for his daily labor and his daily bread. And yet, so far as the 
functions of government existing at the time he wrote his 
"American Commonwealth" are concerned, the words of 
Bryce (Chap. 36) might still be, for the most part, as true 
as then, that the rights of the states "practically cover nearly 



THE GOLDEN RULE REPUBLIC. 117 

all the ordinary relations of citizens to one another and to 
their government/' 

And it must be noted that, notwithstanding the nation- 
alizing of land and labor and certain other great common 
interests, the presumption of socialism will always lean to 
the side of the freest possible self-government. It cannot 
help being so, because the entire system begins with the 
equal rights of individuals. The firmness of its simple frame- 
work would be a reason for greater practical liberty within 
the bounds of law; as a spacious hall supported by a few 
strong pillars is a fairer, freer room than any apartment can 
be in a dozen cabins crowded upon the same ground. Na- 
tional glory would rise higher than ever, but, along with it, 
the domain of state prerogative would still be ample to nour- 
ish loyalty and love as fervent as ever burned in the hearts 
of the children of Carolina or Ehode Island. 

The revolution involved in the nationalizing of indus- 
try would not lead to a corresponding increase in the labors 
of Congress. It would belong to them to map out the sys- 
tem; then the detailed and personal applications would be 
made by the executive departments, in such ways as we have 
enumerated. A large part of the task would be relegated to 
the states, to be performed by their legislatures and commis- 
sions and councils and unions. But the dividends, and the 
grading and compensation of labor, would pertain exclusively 
to the federal care. 

The dignity and duties of the executive in the nation 
or the states would not be materially altered. The appoint- 
ing powers are the only ones of which we need to speak, and 
we avail ourselves of this as the most convenient occasion to 
remark upon the tenure of office in general. A distinction 
must be made between elective and appointive offices, and, 
among the latter, between those offices which call for special 
qualities in the appointee that his superior, either the presi- 
dent or governor himself or the head of some division, is the 
one to estimate, and those others, much more numerous, for 
which an examination or something equivalent may be a 
proper test of fitness. 

As for elective positions, in the first place, two things 



118 THE GOLDEN RULE REPUBLIC. 

are evident; that the people can best decide whom they will 
have to serve them, if they are really acquainted with the 
candidates, and that, if they are not so acquainted, they must 
follow the judgment of their leaders. A reasonable infer- 
ence would be that elective officers may be multiplied too 
far. When the district is too large for the voters to know 
their men familiarly, it would seem well to lessen the diffi- 
culty of intelligent action by electing only to the more im- 
portant positions, leaving as many as possible to be filled 
under the rules of the public service. But when we look 
at the number of officials required for the usual local gov- 
ernment and add the labor organizations, and then the high, 
positions in the state and nation that must be voted for, 
the task of intelligent voting appears, after all, to be a seri- 
ous one. A suggestion is offered, of a relief practicable un- 
der socialism, although not under our present order. It is 
to make the terms of elective officers much longer than now, 
perhaps even, for many of them, either at once or after a 
re-election, dependent solely upon good behavior. This ex- 
pedient would be equitable and safe, because officials, from 
highest to lowest, would receive only the dividends for salary 
and no pickings (the sources being cut off) and because the 
mandate would be always ready for use upon them if the 
people desired it. Political ambition would be cherished by 
men who love such occupations and honors, but the in- 
triguers for money would not get as much as their salt for 
their pains. 

Two considerations, however, weigh against electing for 
indefinite terms in certain cases. Members of legislative 
bodies, in particular, cannot be in too close touch with their 
constituents. The old, colonial theory of annual elections 
for them has a sound foundation. Popular impatience with 
the abuses in politics has brought a strong reaction, until 
only five states now hold annual sessions of the legislature, 
and numbers of citizens think of even these as a kind of 
necessary evil. Proportional representation would strike at 
one great wrong, but could not reach the root of all. Take 
away the corrupting influence of moneyed interests and the 
power of bosses, as socialism would destroy these engines of 
mischief, and the conditions would be reversed. There would 



THE GOLDEN RULE REPUBLIC. 119 

be every incentive to send the best men to the assembly, and 
for them to enact such laws as would stand the test of popu- 
lar approval. This may not agree with the preconceived ideas 
of many, accustomed to believe that their representatives 
cannot be trusted to meet often or to sit long, and to hold, 
not very consistently, withal, that men of ability, character 
and self-respect will not accept such nominations if they 
cannot act independently and brave the adverse winds of 
public feeling. 

But the present system is the one under which men of 
sensitive honor find it hard to serve. The initiative, refer- 
endum and mandate are steps in the natural line of progress, 
whether they limit the freedom of representatives or not. We 
know the historic order; absolute monarchy yields to limited 
monarchy, a vast advance, although no constitutional sov- 
ereign can plan and execute for the good of his subjects like 
a benevolent despot; then comes representative government, 
which is more or less widely different from direct government 
by the people ; and finally, as the people assume complete con- 
trol of their own interests, we have democracy, itself limited 
at present, and in the future so far as we can see, by some 
kind of a constitution. Xo genius or wisdom has been too 
lofty to serve the state under any of these systems, nor will it 
be in the coming era more than in the past. 

The main motive for all the angry protests has been, and 
is, distrust of the common people. It would be folly to dis- 
pute over this. The people must be trusted; the hour is too 
late for half-way measures ; if the masses are in any particu- 
lar unworthy of trust the first of all duties is to make them 
worthy. Educate, educate, put responsibility squarely and 
fully upon them ; whatever the trouble is, here lies the remedy ; 
when the people comprehend that their welfare depends upon 
their own decisions, they will govern themselves and summon 
their cooler judgment. Danger to a free community arises 
far more from arbitrary conduct of men following their pri- 
vate will than from errors of public sentiment, however gross 
these may sometimes be. If the people were so educated and 
so free, there would be more inclination, and not less, to give 
latitude to trusted public servants in delicate matters and to 
accept their management. The possibilities of betrayed con- 



120 THE GOLDEN RULE REPUBLIC. 

fidence, extending in many instances to nullification of laws 
or a coup d'etat, need hardly be counted under socialism, be- 
cause the reins would be so fixed in the people's grasp that 
they could not be let fall. Lessons would be learned on both 
sides ; the people would learn to be better masters, and legis- 
lators and others to be better servants. But if, in any cir- 
cumstances., an official cannot obey the public will and satisfy 
his own conscience, the course for him is to resign. It would 
mean for him no forfeiture of a livelihood ; only a transfer to 
other employment. 

The second consideration in favor of frequent elections 
to legislative offices is simply practical. It is a more agreeable 
method of change than the mandate. The voters in a district 
may have excellent reasons for choosing a new Congressman, 
although there may be nothing amiss in the talents or char- 
acter of the incumbent nor any grounds to specify for such 
a measure as the mandate or recall. Where no large prizes of 
private power or lucre are to be lost or won, electoral contests 
for the legislature would become ordinary affairs and might 
be frequent without disturbing the currents of industry. 

But the case of any executive officer, elective because the 
people prefer to make their own choice, yet whose duties are 
summed up in doing well what he is ordered to do, presents 
a different question. Here we should recur to the wise, old 
rule; if a man is serving anywhere well and willingly, en- 
courage him to keep on. Instead of public office being regarded 
as a good thing to be shared in rotation, it would soon be 
thought of in the social commonwealth as a profession that 
must have special gifts and training, not profitable above other 
work, but fraught with honor for those who can excel. Young 
men of conscious ability would aspire to it for honor's sake; 
but the single fact that there was "no money in it" would 
strip it of a cloud of false attractions. 

In the new commonwealth, the present civil service would 
be embraced in the department of Public Service, and the 
rules of admission and promotion applied in some of its 
branches might well be preserved. All occupations, however, 
would become public service in so far as their organization or 
the results of their labor were nationalized. Eules would have 
to be varied to suit conditions, but everywhere the title to ad- 



THE GOLDEN RULE REPUBLIC. 121 

vancement would be merit and not influence. The three great 
departments of labor would be held in precisely equal esteem. 
Does any one inquire how we can affirm with confidence that 
patronage and personal rewards would no longer prevail as 
they do now? We do not say that favoritism and the like 
abuses will ever be totally exterminated, any more than that 
sin will be abolished, but we observe that all these injustices 
are effort's of the few to get and hold advantages at the ex- 
pense of the many, and we are sure that an intelligent, self- 
governing people would prefer to enforce an impartial sys- 
tem. And better laws would vastly diminish the evil. There 
would be fewer places held by incompetents than we now see, 
and every year of experience with national labor and the 
dividend would reduce the number, for the majority would 
feel the loss. 



122 THE GOLDEN KULE KEPUBLIO. 



THE JUDICIARY. 

We need not attempt to point out the changes in organi- 
zation or procedure of the courts which might ensue upon 
socialism. They would not necessarily be of a radical char- 
acter, except, perhaps, in relation to the tenure of office. Im- 
provements would become easy when lawyers were paid by a 
salary from the dividend, and promoted for averting litiga- 
tion. A higher degree of general intelligence and the cessa- 
tion of class jealousies, through the abolition of classes, would 
make it possible to establish primary courts of conciliation, 
conducted after simple methods, that would effect a settle- 
ment of the greater number of all disputes without any fur- 
ther trouble. When all the operations of justice are free of 
cost to the individual citizen, it will be wise to require every 
question, so far as practicable, to be submitted to these first 
arbiters, and not advanced unless for sufficient reasons ; other- 
wise the facility and freedom from expense might occasion 
reckless persistence in contests. But the aim should be to 
attain justice by the shortest route, and such a legal profes- 
sion as the new commonwealth would develop would be 
ready coadjutors in that good work. 

Some changes in judicial procedure there must and will 
be as the social world passes on into a purer atmosphere. But 
one thing is very certain; the principle of the referendum 
will not be extended to the decisions of the courts, although 
that would be infinitely better than the resort to mob law 
and Judge Lynch. If any recognized, orderly proceeding 
must be forestalled or revised, the referendum would be the 
method to use, appealing in a lawful and deliberate manner 
to the ultimate authority. But in legal matters, above all 
others, a final decision is only second in importance to a right 
decision. An intelligent community very quickly learns that 
its department of justice must be carefully organized and 



THE GOLDEN RULE REPUBLIC. 123 

then heartily sustained. Order always implies a limit, hard 
and fast, somewhere, and such finality is nowhere more bene- 
ficial than in litigation, after due rights of appeal. When 
courts are believed to represent the popular sense of justice, 
lynchings and lawless "committees" will cease; but the peo- 
ple will not allow themselves to be bothered with perpetual 
mandates and referendums. They know their own proper 
business too well. The judicial system of a complete and 
intelligent democracy will receive the strongest support of 
any in the world. Even the pardoning power may be exer- 
cised with better discrimination than we have often wit- 
nessed. 

The most difficult problem as to the judiciary is to de- 
termine the proper mode of their appointment, whether they 
should be elected directly by popular vote or nominated by 
some authority, itself designated by the people. Each of 
these methods is admitted to possess its own distinct ad- 
vantages. We apprehend, however, that under socialism the 
merits of the two may be combined, and their defects avoided. 
The chief point is the addition of a referendum to the nomi- 
nation by an executive. The nominations might proceed 
from the governor or the president, or from a board empow- 
ered for the special service, as the people might deem one 
method or another the more expedient. Confirmation might 
be given by the legislature (or the higher branch, if there 
were two) instead of referring every name to the people. 
By such a course, the advantages of thorough acquaintance 
with candidates and discussion over them would be fully 
attained. Every confirmation should be subject to a refer- 
endum if called for, and the operation of calling it should 
be facilitated as much as possible by devices obviating the 
need of singular labor or responsibility on the part of any 
person. The appointment would stand if no referendum were 
called for, except in the case of courts of last appeal. There 
a referendum would be obligatory. Judges of lower courts, 
in small districts, ought always to be chosen by the people. 
But if the Senate were elected directly by the people and 
were accountable directly to them, as every legislative body 
would be in the new republic, there would be little or no 



124 THE GOLDEN RULE REPUBLIC. 

room for the abuses from which we are beginning to suffer, 
and the confirmation of a judge would rarely be challenged. 
The same all-powerful and ever-ready instruments of 
the popular will, the referendum and the mandate, would 
simplify politics wonderfully by making it quite practicable 
for officials in general, and judges in particular, to hold their 
positions during good behavior. Perhaps the time for retire- 
ment of eminent public servants, to whom advancing years 
are bringing only increase of wisdom and public confidence 
and usefulness, may, in some instances, be deferred to a 
greater age than for common men. But there will also be 
examples of an opposite sort, discreditable to the bench for 
incompetence, false doctrine, perhaps worse. To meet these 
cases, impeachment for malfeasance in office is provided for; 
c'nd in addition to this, the mandate would apply to the 
judiciary. 

The men who drew up our Constitution were very fear- 
ful of popular agitations. It is doubtful whether their plan 
for introducing amendments would satisfy a people accus- 
tomed to more direct legislation. Yet a scheme cannot be 
denied a high degree of merit which renders it impossible 
to ratify an amendment without the concurrence of nearly 
all sections of the Union, and, at the same time, has ad- 
mitted such alterations at three different periods within a 
century. But in proportion as intelligence (a larger term 
than knowledge, implying here the responsible activity of the 
citizen) increases, it will become safe and desirable to make 
the fundamental law somewhat more open to improvement. 
The shortest constitution is usually the best; at any rate, the 
rule is a good one, to leave as many social regulations as 
possible in the more flexible form of statutes ; but the corner- 
stones of the social fabric ought to be laid, as far as may be, 
beyond the reach of partisan assaults. Four of these, at 
least, "direct legislation," national ownership of the land, 
national organization of industry, the dividend, ought to be 
firmly established by a place in the Constitution. 

The new air and light of the new era will give birth 
to many novel political arrangements, besides reshaping those 
which are preserved from the past. We cannot even dream 



THE GOLDEN RULE REPUBLIC. 125 

of all the interesting things that the future is to reveal. It 
is more than probable that a community about to form a 
Golden Eule republic, and working without any pre-posses- 
sions in favor of any actual government, would be led to 
adopt a system differing in many important respects from 
that of the United States. Our own wish has been to avoid 
novelty. We have aimed to present a design for a structure 
upon the basis of our existing institutions, and in no wise 
too difficult for practical achievement if the people want it. 
We might go on to speak of the organization of the depart- 
ments at Washington and the president's cabinet, and of 
states and municipalities and many other topics, but it does 
not seem needful to our purpose. The creative energy of the 
true social principle, the law of love, will fashion instruments 
for all manner of public uses at its pleasure. 

Suffrage is every individual citizen's share in govern- 
ment. Nothing can exceed its value to the common people. 
With this in actual possession, the people are ultimately sure 
to win whatever they desire; but their own defects again 
may result in their losing it. The one vital, universal quali- 
fication demanded impartially of every voter must be intelli- 
gence, a simple, but adequate degree of intelligence. The 
center of the conflict between Good and Evil will, therefore, 
be found in the field of education, by press and platform and 
pulpit, in political campaigns and in the schools. It is evi- 
dent that no power can justly deprive any person of an equal 
part in the grand prerogative of suffrage except upon grounds 
of necessity, for the welfare of the whole social body. This 
reserve is employed by selfishness as a sufficient pretext for 
every kind of oppression. But wherever there is truth in it, 
as touching minors, persons half-witted or insane, crimi- 
nals, strangers who are not properly trained to our citizen- 
ship, classes or individuals who are not yet civilized enough 
to exercise the right, it is evident that a counterweight of 
responsibility rests upon those who withhold the right, to see 
that the privation is brought at the earliest moment to an end. 

Here we face the measureless wickedness of the selfish, 
comfortable classes, who have lived in such a world as this 
for ages without ever caring to bend their energies to the 



126 THE GOLDEN KULE REPUBLIC. 

Christ-like task of raising their brothers and sisters to a level 
with themselves. "Self-help" demands opportunity, inspira- 
tion, sympathy, a thousand forms of brotherly, public, and 
private assistance, or else they who, looking from their su- 
perior heights upon the struggle, use the word for a spur 
are something worse than hypocrites. No sophistry of science 
"falsely so-called" can obscure the title of the poorest or 
blackest human being to all that human rights imply; nor 
can any mantle of good works shelter those who survey so 
indifferently the spectacle of the weakest crushed to the wall 
from His judgment, who "forgetteth not the cry of the 
humble." There is no greater act of oppression than unjust 
exclusion from the suffrage. 

Every person who can be wronged has a right himself 
to hold the just means of redress. The suffrage lies at the 
foundation of lawful self-defence; if it is denied to any 
member of society, the burden of proof is on him who denies 
it. Socialism would base the exercise of the suffrage upon 
the possession of human powers and needs, regardless of 
such irrelevant distinctions as those of sex or race. Woman 
suffrage would then appear simply natural, and the chief 
difficulties now felt or anticipated in that, as in many other 
reforms, would vanish like a dream. 



THE GOLDEN RULE REPUBLIC. 127 



§ 13. THE EIGHT TO EDUCATION. 

We have next to consider the citizen's right to 
education. A distinction as to the purpose of education 
must be drawn at the outset. The republic of today pro- 
ceeds logically no farther than is needful to make good citi- 
zens, although this, indeed, is a great advance upon the older 
view> that children ought to be fitted for the duties of their 
station in society. In America, we do not admit that the 
future rank of a child is settled at his birth. There is room 
for dispute over the studies to be included in preparation for 
mere citizenship, but in practice the kindlier, socialistic im- 
pulse triumphs over the logic of competition. A certain 
measure of higher instruction at the public charge is ex- 
plained as not inconsistent with the competitive theory. High 
schools and universities may be worth their cost for devel- 
oping the talents of those who will become leaders in the 
state. They do fulfill their part of this mission. 

But the studies in the common schools are being multi- 
plied, year by year, and expanded beyond any need for the 
qualifying of an average voter or the mental equipment of a 
mechanic. This is no fruit from the seed-principle of com- 
petition, that the government should interfere with nothing 
that private enterprise can perform. It is rather the instinct 
of the people asserting the principle of socialism, that society 
ought to give to every member of its body the highest oppor- 
tunity possible to make himself a man, because society can 
do it best. The co-operative commonwealth must aim to 
provide for its citizens all the education of which human 
nature is capable. JvTo revolution in our public school system 
is called for; only let the true principle, already well estab- 
lished, be carried out in action thoroughly without delay. 

Attendance at school would be compulsory, although it 



128 THE GOLDEN RULE REPUBLIC. 

would not long require to be so when wages were not paid to 
minors. The years of childhood and youth would be reck- 
oned none too many to be spent in preparing for the respon- 
sibilities of life. How many should be given to the schools 
is a question to be answered according to individual talents 
and character. Children in our better communities, the poor 
as well as the rich, are expected to finish a course of about 
ten years, closing at the age of fifteen or sixteen with the 
last grade in the grammar school. The children of the new 
commonwealth would be able to go at least as far. Among 
us, those who finish their schooling at this point are the 
scholars whose parents cannot afford to keep them longer 
out of profitable employment, or else those who have not a 
sufficient turn for study to devote further attention to books. 
Under the new order, they would enter at once upon appren- 
ticeship for their probable life-work. It would be a service 
of, perhaps, five or six years, a longer term than would be 
exacted of those whose studious ambition carried them through 
the college. 

This extended period of service would have to be care- 
fully regulated by the directors of education. It would give 
opportunity to prepare for a wide range of industrial skill, 
not without its own methods and courses of study also, in 
related branches of science, and the knowledge of materials 
and inventions and expedients, besides the daily round of 
labor-practice, all so arranged as to fit the boy or girl for a 
thoroughly accomplished workman in some wisely selected 
handicraft or profession. Emulation would be encouraged, 
and prizes and honors would be bestowed at intervals, and 
the successes of the workshop or field or technical class might 
be as dear to the cadet or apprentice as those of the college 
were to the student. 

The young people who elected to pursue higher studies 
would include most of the active minds that would be ready 
for college at fourteen or fifteen or even earlier. There is 
time during minority for an excellent education, entirely 
consistent w T ith health and pleasure, if the time could be 
profitably employed, but at present it seems to be sadly wasted. 
The years remaining after leaving the common school would 
not, however, all be open for collegiate studies, because the 



THE GOLDEN RULE REPUBLIC. 129 

apprenticeship, or whatever the training may be termed, for 
the business of life is included in this period. Some occu- 
pations, like seamanship, farming, mining, demand more time 
than others, or can be mastered only in the right surroundings. 
Xor is every one able to decide equally soon, or with equal 
certainty, what it is best for him to do. Only a very natural 
and flexible system could answer such a diversity of circum- 
stances, but socialism would find by experiment the way to 
meet each case, for the weightiest considerations of the state 
would bend to the interests of education. 

Public sentiment would tend to a rising standard of 
intellectual discipline for the young. American college stu- 
dents, as a rule, are over twenty-one at their graduation. 
The socialist Congress might, very likely, sanction one year 
of apprenticeship, and the whole of a professional course of, 
perhaps, three years, after twenty-one (which we suppose to 
be the age of majority) when the record of the student was 
creditable in his previous school and college. In such cases, 
the young man or woman would enjoy all the privileges of a 
voter, excepting that an allowance fixed by Congress would 
take the place of the dividend for them, and the period of 
the lowest grade would not commence until the expiration 
of their studies. We have assumed, what ought to be and 
probably would be so, that every youth would be required to 
spend at least one full year, or two half-years, in apprentice- 
ship at some kind of manual labor. 

The capstone of the educational system would be the 
universities. With these, the professional schools would nat- 
urally be connected; and there would be offered besides as 
many courses of lectures and lines of special instruction as 
scholarship would dictate, or thirst for learning could desire; 
and as many of these advantages as possible would be brought 
within access of every citizen. Lectureships in the centers 
of population, teaching by telephone and phonograph, univer- 
sity extension classes and correspondence and institutes and 
summer schools, all would be employed to reach the remotest 
and busiest person. As for leisure, the hours or the days of 
labor, or even the occupation itself, might be modified and 
arranged in a hundred ways to accommodate those, whether 
younger or older, who want to continue their education. 



130 THE GOLDEN RULE REPUBLIC. 

The daily share of an individual in the national indus- 
try would create a healthful mental energy rather than a 
need for rest. A man in the midst of active labor would be 
able to excel in literary or scientific pursuits, and to follow 
valuable post-graduate studies, especially if, by doubling up 
his vacations, he could apply himself steadily to them. It 
would be unfair to conclude from the behavior of men as 
they are absorbed in the race for money, beset with false 
ideals, worried with anxieties and over-wearied with toil, that 
in a brighter dispensation, when the grimmest fears and cares 
were banished and the easier life gave each one liberty to 
seek happiness according to his own tastes, only with kindly 
regard to the happiness of his neighbor, there would still 
be no broadening of mental activity. The uplifting forces 
that are doing so much already would then be set free to 
exert their power. Why should not the millions, who come 
up to the Golden Kule republic from the ranks of poverty, 
respond as freely as the thousands, who form the society of 
wealth? The materials for equally noble manhood and wo- 
manhood are in them. 

But all this post-graduate culture would be limited by 
the necessary discipline of the industrial army, never per- 
mitted to weaken the efficiency of the labor-unions for the 
business of the year. The person who chose to quit the army 
temporarily for a course at the university would have to make 
application in due season for his leave, and would incur 
some loss in time and dividends. Doubtless, however, there 
would be scholarships provided in sufficient number by the 
people to confer upon unusual talents the privileges of the 
universities, or of foreign study and travel, without any for- 
feiture. The disposition to retreat from daily labor into 
studios or university halls would be repressed by the same 
hand that hastened to lend encouragement to the develop- 
ment of natural gifts. 

Theories about education would be discussed in the social 
commonwealth as warmly as they are now; but there is one 
position that would be accepted, most certainly, by all. When 
every life, up to its very end, had so much opportunity for 
intellectual culture, the notion that a stock of knowledge for 



THE GOLDEN RULE REPUBLIC. 131 

a life-time must be laid in before the boy is graduated from 
college would pass away. It would be the aim of the common- 
wealth to bestow upon every child the discipline of wisdom 
and the keys of knowledge and then to let him press forward 
at his will. This would involve logically (if events would 
obey the logical order) a partial return to the conception of 
an undergraduate curriculum in which those branches of 
study which most strongly discipline the mind and train it 
to the Greek idea of wisdom are chiefly dwelt upon. Many 
other branches of science and letters may be of no less inter- 
est, but they exercise only the same faculties, and hence, ex- 
cept so far as the mere rudiments, would be deferred to the 
hours of leisure in later years. 

In the Golden Eule Eepublic, such leisure, accompanying 
an untired brain and heart, would fall to the lot of every 
citizen at every age, nor would its opportunities be wasted. 
More and more of the people would taste and learn the de- 
lights of wisdom and knowledge; more and more, in place of 
trying to wear accomplishments like a holiday garment, a 
wide and genial culture would become the natural atmosphere 
of the home. The greatest reason, I believe, why the average 
child retains so little profit, comparatively, from school in- 
struction is, that his home life has prepared no setting for 
the new treasures, and, even if apprehended, they drop out 
silently and are lost. If the school and the home are in har- 
mony with high intelligence and with each other, the healthy, 
childish mind will drink instruction as eagerly as a babe its 
mother's milk. To diffuse a refinement like this through all 
the homes of a nation is a work of time; but then, it is a 
cumulative, an accelerating work, and we can rejoice that it- 
is well begun already. 

The details of such a curriculum would be matters of 
debate. We only venture to indicate how fine an education 
the humblest child in the co-operative commonwealth might 
receive. Fifteen years, or even ten, is time enough to learn 
a great deal, provided it does not need to be hammered into 
the pupil by endless repetition. 

The first demand is a sound body. Physical training 
must wisely supplement outdoor play, bringing into action 
neglected or undeveloped muscles, restoring ease of manner 



132 THE GOLDEN RULE REPUBLIC. 

when the child grows awkward, cultivating in both sexes 
gracefulness, vigor, quickness, balance, nerve. There ought 
to be a distinct course of training for each of the five senses. 
Confinement to study must not be too long or severe ; and the 
shortening of sight that is due to improper use of books 
should be stopped. All this would be attained readily in 
better social conditions and would help rather than hinder 
the ordinary class-work. 

There, the first thing required would be to give to every 
child a real mastery of reading and writing. Next in order 
would stand the beginnings of observation and animated, ac- 
curate description, first, of surrounding nature, and so ex- 
tending to the domain of geography and physics; then the 
rudiments of mathematics to impart habits of clear apprehen- 
sion and definition; then of American history and social 
science and morals, to teach sound reflection and right feel- 
ing, the concrete being employed to lead up to the abstract; 
finally, of criticism in literature (including grammar) and in 
art, to create a pure taste and powers of independent judg- 
ment. This may appear like the too concise summary of a 
monstrous amount of work for a boy or girl to do ; and, in- 
deed, the task should always be suited to the individual char- 
acter; but the main principles of all this knowledge and dis- 
cipline can be fixed in the mind of an average child before 
the conclusion of his term in the grammar school. 

We have supposed that attendance at school thus far 
would be compulsory. How much farther it might be made 
so, the future would determine. There would be a rank of 
higher institutions of learning, between the common school 
and the university, which we would honor with the ancient 
title of college on account of their educational purpose, al- 
though in some respects they would correspond to the present 
high school. It would be necessary, of course, to plant gram- 
mar schools within daily reach of every family, and, on the 
other hand, to allow no family to be located too far from any 
school house. But the colleges cannot be equally numerous; 
yet the aim would be to induce and enable every youth to 
enter them. They should be established, like our high schools, 
in every district of sufficient population ; and it may be hoped 
that, after a while, the standard of compulsory education 



THE GOLDEN RULE REPUBLIC. 133 

might be so raised that a year, or two years, of the collegiate 
course might be added to the grammar schools, under super- 
vision from the nearest college. There would be a uniform 
standard of scholarship, but colleges would differ in numbers 
and reputation like the English public schools and the Ger- 
man gymnasia. The headship of one of the great colleges 
would be a throne of influence that Arnold of Rugby might 
covet. 

We assume that the advancement of students in the col- 
lege as in the common school would be according to individ- 
ual progress as far as practicable, and not by numbers at 
once without distinction; because the intent of socialism is 
to make all that can be made out of every man. If so, each 
student might be entitled to a course-diploma for each branch 
of college study pursued with credit, as well as to his degree 
when he completed the curriculum. But in such details of 
management the colleges may be permitted to differ from 
each other while keeping the same end and standard always 
in view. 

The college curriculum would naturally develop the same 
lines pursued in the common school. There should, indeed, 
be no occasion to dwell upon the English language further, 
except under a division of criticism or philology. But every 
educated man ought to learn thoroughly at least one or two 
modern languages besides his own, for he who acquires a 
new language gains entrance into a new world. It would be 
most desirable that the initial steps in them should be taken 
earlier, in the common school. The accomplishment is by no 
means so difficult for the average scholar as it appears, if the 
right teachers and methods can be provided. And it will be 
a day of promise for true culture when students turn again 
with enthusiasm to those classic languages which, if mastered 
as we master French or German, transport us across oceans 
of time as well as of distance and open to us a marvellous 
human world ages ago sleeping in dust and yet, to us, living 
and immortal. 

The natural sciences would be carried out into their var- 
ious branches in the heavens, the earth and the seas, not ex- 
haustively, as the mature specialist will choose to do, but so 
that the outlines of them all may be seized and firmly re- 



134 THE GOLDEN RULE REPUBLIC. 

tained. Mathematics would be developed sufficiently to fur- 
nish data and discipline for the highest after researches. The 
study of history would be engaged with other countries be- 
sides our own ; the elements of intellectual and moral philos- 
ophy, of social science and the constitution of the co-operative 
commonwealth would be treated with such fulness and pre- 
cision as may guard the republic against a race of half -think- 
ing men and women. Criticism would be brought into var- 
ious exercise, applied to art by the help of pictures, models 
and other means, and to letters by the study of the history 
and masterpieces of literature. One fruit of culture, upon 
which peculiar care would be expended to secure, at once, its 
widest prevalence and finest perfection, would be the wor- 
thiest use of our noble English tongue. Every department 
of rhetoric, in writing and speaking English, would be applied 
in practice as fully as the age of students permitted. And if 
some effective lessons could be given also in the art of con- 
versation, an art which seems liable to vanish from among 
us, except for strictly business purposes, what a charm it 
would add to living ! 

But the entire scheme of study in grammar school and 
college is educational and elementary in character. English 
and any other selected languages and arithmetic may be the 
only subjects which every student would be expected to master 
in detail. The universities, with their professional and tech- 
nological schools, and the public libraries would furnish 
abundant facilities for higher scholarly pursuits. Popular 
instruction in the fine arts, except as the rudiments (especi- 
ally of music and drawing) were included in the training of 
the senses above referred to, would probably have no place 
in the common schools or colleges, but the several Art Schools 
would belong to every university. 

The paramount aim of education is not at the head, but 
at the heart, in the perfection of noble character. The school 
may not even attempt to fill the place in this task that be- 
longs to the home, but its own place is sufficient to satisfy a 
pure ambition, nor can anyone tell beforehand who, among 
the many successive teachers, from the kindergarten upward, 
will set the deepest stamp upon the boy or girl. There is 
infinite need of teachers at every step, and not least in the 



THE GOLDEN RULE REPUBLIC. 135 

earliest stages, who are themselves animated by the spirit of 
the true, the beautiful and the good. It is the teacher, more 
than the text-book, that impresses the youthful mind. 

But the book is the steadier, abiding force, speaking the 
same words after teachers have passed away. Any one who 
has known a typical New England village of half a century 
ago remembers how the thinking of the people was influenced 
by the selections, often excellent, which were indelibly fas- 
tened in their memory from the readers they had used in 
childhood in school. We need manuals of manly and womanly 
virtue, attractive and inspiring to boys and girls, and worthy 
to be conned over until similarly remembered. There is no 
book, however, that can approach, in practical usefulness for 
ethical instruction, to the New Testament. Unhappily, con- 
troversies, in which conscience is involved, have arisen over 
the reading of the Bible in schools; and conscience must be 
respected. But even where a community is divided as to the 
wisdom of putting the whole New Testament into the schol- 
ars' hands, a collection of passages, from the Old Testament 
as well as the New, but especially from the sayings of Christ, 
might be prepared, that would give no offense, at least to 
believers in the principles of theism, and it would be better 
than any other book for the purpose. Such a collection might 
include also the sayings of other great moral teachers. But 
this is one question of educational policy which may best be 
decided by separate communities for themselves. 

Industrial training would form too large a topic to be 
adequately treated here. We have spoken of it briefly already. 
For the boys and girls who declined to enter college, a two- 
fold course would be devised, first, as industrial cadets, and 
then as apprentices. The former course would be calculated 
to impart as wide a circle of practical knowledge as possible 
and a handiness that would turn in any direction. The manege 
and the care of animals, hygiene, and the arts of housekeep- 
ing, would all receive proper attention. Certain kinds of 
productive labor would be provided for the cadets, near 
enough to their homes, under superintendence of a teacher 
appointed for this service. Country district's would be sup- 
plied with the same advantages as the towns, so far as prac- 



136 THE GOLDEN RULE REPUBLIC. 

ticable, but parents could send their children to any teachers 
they preferred. The training would be work and not play; 
very likely productive enough to pay the allowances of those 
engaged in it; but the hours would be no longer than others 
had to spend in school. There would also be a considerable 
amount of instruction by books and lectures. During this 
period, there would be room to test the abilities of each 
cadet, and at the end, the boy or girl would select a calling 
and enter upon the term of regular apprenticeship. 

College graduates would miss a great part of the instruc- 
tion and practice enjoyed by these cadets, but it is presumed 
that in maturity of judgment for selecting their future oc- 
cupation they would be quite equal to others. It will be re- 
membered that throughout their grammar school days they 
all together would have shared in frequent, perhaps daily, 
systematic physical exercises, which in part would be given 
by the use of tools. Some occupations require a longer ap- 
prenticeship than others, even for the happy inheritors of 
native skill. Some students would be graduated from college 
almost as early as some others were entering; some would 
contemplate a course of three years, while others would take 
four or five; and some would, accordingly, find time for a 
year or more among the cadets besides their necessary ap- 
prenticeship. Each youthful career would have to be planned 
from step to step with sedulous regard to individual talents 
and circumstances. We have spoken, in Section 10, of the 
order prescribed for any person who desired to change his 
occupation in the industrial army. Men cannot often shift 
from one trade to another with as little trouble today. The 
question of a life-work need not be settled for any one in the 
new commonwealth until it is settled right. And this is the 
form of society that has been rated as organized materialism 
and denounced as a huge machine, sure to destroy all in- 
dividuality and aspiration! 

The subject of military training demands attention. 
Strenuous complaints are made that socialism would ener- 
vate the nation, undermining the virile elements of character 
so deeply that the commonwealth would sink under the in- 
roads of foreign or domestic foes. If the manly virtues 
were to be forfeited by the securing of such comfort in life 



THE GOLDEN RULE REPUBLIC. 137 

it would indeed be like selling our birthright for a mess 
of pottage; but there would be no sacrifice of manliness. 

The common man would acquire under socialism such 
a consciousness of power over his own destiny and responsi- 
bility for the welfare of the body of which he forms a part 
as he never had even in the earlier days of New England, 
and this is the very discipline that constitutes a state. The 
sons of the social commonwealth would learn to feel the 
brotherhood of humanity, but it would not be loving mankind 
the less if, when a dividing line must be drawn, they loved 
their native land the more. International socialism would 
be international co-operation, which would necessarily mean 
peace, the triumph of arbitration and the final end of war. 
Yet if the fires of race ambitions or hatreds were to blaze up 
again out of their dying embers, the new social order would 
prove itself a school of true patriotism. The bundle of price- 
less interests over which our starry banner floats would 
never be surrendered. Give the people a system of liberties 
which can satisfy their instincts of justice; train the young 
men (not children) in the use of arms; maintain a thor- 
oughly organized militia, and even a far weaker nation than 
ours would be unconquerable. 

We believe that the great majority would find only 
stronger incentives to those habits of self-reliance and self- 
assertion, which need to be seasoned with good feeling and 
good sense, but which in time of peace prepare for war. Yet 
no one, who remembers the total ignorance and inexperience 
of the North as to military matters at the beginning of the 
Civil War, can question the importance of some military 
training for every young man who may have to defend his 
home or his country. That unreadiness cost the nation dear. 
How much time is to be spent in an education, which a very 
moderate degree of civilization in Europe and America will 
render obsolete, is for statesmen to determine. The time is 
fearfully "out of joint" when even one of the precious years 
of any youth must be surrendered to such pursuit's. How- 
ever, "what is worth doing at all is worth doing well." 

It has been the wise policy of the United States to sup- 
port an army and navy of the highest grade in appointments 
and discipline, as small in numbers as will suffice, but with 



138 THE GOLDEN RULE REPUBLIC. 

ample provision for rapid increase to the utmost measure. 
To carry out the idea, there should be an adequate system of 
military training devised for the militia, in which every young 
man should be enrolled. Summer camps can be managed so 
as to impart an acquaintance with routine that is highly val- 
uable, even though little of discipline or of skill in the use 
of arms is gained in that way. The last-named essential 
qualification calls for an all-the-year-round stimulus. There 
is also much advantage in giving to the older boys in school 
a certain familiarity with drill and the handling of weapons, 
especially where the community is a thoroughly peaceful one. 
But the step, of this kind, which would go farthest to insure 
that a nation would be self-respecting and respected by its 
enemies when quarrels came to the arbitrament of brute 
force, would be to encourage that pride which our Saxon race 
has always taken in prowess with man's natural weapons, not 
in reckless rough and tumble, but in boxing and wrestling 
fairly. No trait from antiquity in any race is braver than 
the Saxon love of fair play with the hands; and no exercise 
is like a hand-to-hand struggle to develop a man, bold and 
quick and able to help in an emergency. There would, of 
course, be no intention to encourage prize-fighting or other 
brutalities, nor would the policy have such an effect. The 
tendency to barbarism, in fighting, hazing and so on, among 
boys and youths, will be checked by the rising influence of 
refinement in homes and elsewhere; and it would be miti- 
gated rather than strengthened by the general possession of 
skill in the manly arts of self-defense. In addition to this, 
however, there must be enough of the technical education of 
a soldier. And for all this the leisure and means afforded 
by socialism would be better than anything that we possess 
today. 

It would be a serious problem for the commonwealth to 
maintain the requisite number of able teachers. The care of 
children, however, falls naturally to women's hands, and, as 
a rule, they make the best teachers for the host of grammar 
schools. A large percentage of the young women would 
choose that profession, and the normal school would be their 
apprenticeship. Promotion would, of course, mean for them, 



THE GOLDEN RULE REPUBLIC. 139 

as for the men in the same calling, not only higher grades 
and dividends/ but nomination to professors' chairs in col- 
leges or universities. The one chief interference with wo- 
men's advancement in any calling is the new sphere of duties 
which opens to them after marriage, and it affects their suc- 
cess in teaching more than in some other lines of service. 
But ways would be found to adjust those matters fairly. The 
body of female teachers would change more rapidly than the 
male teachers; nevertheless, there would always be many wo- 
men holding the most important life-long positions; and no 
profession, for man or woman, would be more esteemed and 
honored by the commonwealth. 

Education is a main part of the public business, an in- 
vestment yielding the amplest material as well as spiritual 
returns to the state. A question may arise touching private 
schools, secular or religious, unsectarian or denominational. 
The answer is obvious. No school could be tolerated which 
did not come up to the standard and accept the examination 
and inspection of the federal authorities; but if the institu- 
tion fulfilled the objects of a public school, did not interfere 
with the industrial organization and conformed to the moral 
law, it might have what additional features it pleased — let 
it stand upon its merits and the support of its friends. Public 
support must be confined to public institutions. There can 
be no division of responsibility to compromise the supreme 
result. The whole ground must be covered by the public 
schools. The Golden Eule republic will depend for its life 
upon making the highest practicable level of intelligence 
universal among its citizens. It cannot be permanent 
otherwise. 



140 THE GOLDEN RULE REPUBLIC. 



§ 14. THE EIGHT TO EECEEATION. 

Man has a right to recreation. It is essential to 
his welfare, and, consequently, he has just and proper claim 
for it upon society; which means that society, acting upon 
the Golden Eule, can do much toward supplying the needful 
opportunities. True, the man himself may win his leisure, 
and experience all the more delight in the recreation that 
comes as a reward of his own striving. But this is the lot of 
the strong and the fortunate, and the hope of it only tantalizes 
a multitude of weaker, or, it is perhaps more likely, better- 
hearted and more scrupulous men, who deserve the boon as 
well as any and, it may be, need it most. The commonwealth 
must devise liberally for all these classes, for their aspira- 
tions may be equally right. We have to consider how the man 
who labors honorably in the rudest calling may have a full 
share of bright and wholesome recreation poured into his life, 
and, at the same time, how the desires of other men, of supe- 
rior energy and talent, may be rewarded. 

Time is the first requisite, which society can supply by 
lightening the burdens of labor where they are too great, and 
chiefly by shorter hours of labor every day. The weekly sab- 
bath ought to have the sanction of law as a day of rest, en- 
tirely apart from its use for worship. No labor during its 
hours should be compulsory, except that some branches of 
the public service would have to continue as necessary for the 
general good; and in these the workers should be relieved by 
shorter shifts as much as possible. We might be none the 
worse for a few more national holidays judiciously distributed 
along the course of the seasons. But a holiday seems worth 
ten times more when some good occasion calls for it than it 
can be when appointed merely for its own sake. So the 
national calendar may best be left to the inspiration of 
events. 



THE GOLDEN RULE REPUBLIC. 141 

The most convenient holidays and vacations are those 
appointed by the citizen himself, a fact which opens a pleas- 
ant avenue to the fancy. More and more of our people, every 
summer, contrive to take some kind of a vacation, the poor 
deriving as much benefit as the rich, although compelled to 
solve an added problem, how to live with the smallest increase 
of expense away from home. It seems quite feasible, under 
socialism, for every family and every laborer in the land to 
enjoy a vacation at some time during each year, no two or 
three or six months off, indeed, because the allowance to all 
members of the same grade would be equal, but as long as 
experience might prove to be practicable. The gain in rate 
and quality of production upon the return from such an out- 
ing would go far to compensate for the break in continuous 
labor. A furlough for vacation could be obtained by any one 
at any time when the state of the work permitted, but it 
would be at the cost of the laborers wages during the period. 
Independent workers would take what time they pleased ; but 
they must meet their engagements as to production afterward 
or suffer the consequences. 

One may be a little puzzled to fancy the appearance of 
Newport after such a reconstruction; but what a new world 
of enjoyment there would be for millions ! Those persons 
who are accustomed to planning within very elastic limits how 
or where to spend their summers or their winters may rebel 
at the notion of such a wholesale franchise to the masses and 
abridgement to themselves. We would urge them to consider 
if life, upon the whole, would not be richer in resources of 
happiness for them, notwithstanding the sacrifice of some ex- 
clusive privileges. Certainly, the plans here outlined fit 
closely to the Golden Eule, and that means happiness. 

Next in importance would be the office of the state in 
providing facilities for recreation. The subject in general 
pertains naturally to the local administration. Arrange- 
ments for time, whether in release from hours or days or 
weeks of labor, would belong to the federal control and the 
local unions would have charge of them. If they were likely 
to affect any totals of production, the higher labor authorities 
would require to be apprised of them at the beginning of the 
year, and might revise and alter them to some extent in the 



14^ THE GOLDEN RULE REPUBLIC. 

interests of the entire nation; but, ordinarily, each commun- 
ity would fix the conditions of labor to suit itself. In like 
order, plans and appropriations for parks and all places of 
public resort for recreation would be made by the localities 
most nearly concerned. 

But the matter would not rest there, for the subject is 
one of ample magnitude to occupy a department of each state 
administration, which would encourage public spirit and 
unite the several districts in the most enlightened measures. 
Many of the large schemes for pleasure resorts, libraries, ex- 
positions, museums, and other institutions for popular cul- 
ture and enjoyment of the arts would have to be fostered by 
the several states, while the nation would have similar enter- 
prises, especially at Washington, and the elevating influence 
of the federal government would be felt everywhere. 

This brings us to the more difficult question of public 
and private amusements, a dilemma which no other social 
order can handle safely. Let us keep in mind that sovereign 
power must reside immediately with the people so that they 
can adopt or discard any policy as it may seem good to them. 
There is a considerable army of persons whose sole business is 
to furnish amusement to the public, which they do in a mul- 
titude of ways, some of them excellent, others less so, yet 
worthy of credit or indulgence, and others radically bad. The 
commonwealth would have its choice with each of these, to 
monopolize, or to license, or to overlook, or to suppress. 

In some cases there is such an utter chasm of separation 
in moral sense between the friends and foes of a practice — 
the bull-fight, for one conspicuous example — that the con- 
test over its toleration must be fought out on a broad field 
and carried, very likely, up to the national Congress. If the 
custom were pronounced by the final authority to be im- 
moral, it would be treated as a crime. We can imagine a few 
possible instances of a practice allowed by some community, 
but, upon protest and appeal, condemned by the nation as 
too gross a moral nuisance to be borne with. Society must 
have a common moral rule and live by it, while according 
the widest range to individual sentiment. But the presump- 



THE GOLDEN RULE REPUBLIC. 143 

tion would always be in favor of dealing with these matters 
by local option; or, at least, reserving them to the province 
of the state legislature. 

The idea of a municipal or state bureau for the encour- 
agement of recreation will be opposed as an interference with 
private affairs, and perhaps as the token of a disposition to- 
ward intolerance. The socialist theory, however, is not pater- 
nal, asserting superior rights in any party in office, but it is 
fraternal, inculcating a degree of brotherly interest and even 
responsibility that is strange to the politicians. If we accept 
the view that recreation may be as important, in its own 
place, as education, we begin at once to see that the same 
power, the public hand, ought to manage both. ]STo other is 
capable of securing anything like equal privileges to the in- 
habitants of all sections; or of maintaining the standard in 
every part of the country at its best. The agency employed 
may be city, or state, or nation, but the power behind it must 
be the sovereign majority. 

Many towns and even states would patronize the drama, 
erecting admirably appointed theatres and opera-houses, em- 
ploying, and perhaps training, their own companies and mak- 
ing the stage, what it has not been for two thousand years, 
a responsive member in the circle of interests of the weight- 
iest and purest classes in the community. If any form of 
amusement is liable to be perverted into mischief, the better 
forces of society may avert the danger under government con- 
trol, when, in private ownership, the evil would be hard to 
reach. Minor entertainments, lectures, concerts and other 
things in variety may, doubtless, go on as they do now; but 
if any of them became of sufficient consequence, by increasing 
popularity or possible usefulness, it would be taken in charge 
by the public. 

Are amusements to be provided among the many good 
things in the Golden Eule republic free of charge? Not 
always; perhaps not usually. It will hardly be advisable 
to place amusements upon the same gratuitous footing as the 
means of popular refinement or access to beautiful nature; 
and hence we might expect to find an elaborate exposition, or 
musical festival, or a costly reproduction of Shakspeare or 
Wagner offered without charge, while entertainments in gen- 



144 THE GOLDEN RULE REPUBLIC. 

eral would have their scale of prices. Lower tastes might 
rule for awhile in one section of the country or another, but 
the tendency under socialism would be upward and not down- 
ward. It would be no part of a socialist policy to make money 
out of the amusements of the people; but rather to elevate 
the standard of popular taste from year to year. 

We have reason to hope that the new republic would ex- 
ercise its power of issuing licenses with a good conscience. T.t 
would be less easy then to grant permits for the ruin of the 
unwary and to draw revenue from sensual passions than it is 
now under the conscienceless reign of competition. I do not 
abuse the existing order by this epithet. Conscience is not 
called for by competition. The nearest approach to a moral 
demand in our system of business is the necessity of fulfill- 
ing agreements, without which everything would fall to pieces. 
But moral principles form the basis of socialism; its appeal 
to conscience is constant and consistent. 

Questions relating to the use of intoxicating drinks, to- 
bacco, opium, and similar subjects, would arise and would 
naturally be referred to local authority, except in cases where 
wider interests were directly involved. It is not probable 
that every state or municipality would approve the same ar- 
rangements. One circumstance, however, would lend a most 
powerful aid to the moral forces of the community in their 
efforts to control the situation. The factor of individual, 
pecuniary interest would be eliminated completely from the 
problem. When all these things are produced and distributed 
by the public alone, there will be far more hope of honest, ra- 
tional discussion and conscientious action than is possible at 
present, while ruthless and greedy self-interest is incessantly 
pushing the business for all it is worth. The scheme of re- 
straint upon liquor-drinking that is adopted may be the South 
Carolina dispensary, or the Scandinavian public saloon, or 
the Maine law, or something else, perhaps a new device born 
of new conditions — whatever it may be, neither financial nor 
political conspirators would hinder it from being tested upon 
its merits, fairly. 

There is fear expressed that under such a very genial 
and liberal system of government the people would incline 



THE GOLDEN RULE REPUBLIC. 145 

more and more to amuse themselves instead of working. But 
why should it prove so? If the habit of looking upon labor 
as an evil to be escaped from were clinging to a man, and the 
allurements of company and pleasure were so strong upon 
him that he neglected his job under the labor-union, he would 
soon feel the pressure of necessity. No w T ages would be for 
him without working; and if he shirked or scamped, the wages 
would be forfeited, for the union must sustain the quantity 
and the quality of its products. Every member of the higher 
grades, and every citizen interested in the rolling-up of a sur- 
plus for new business enterprises or public works, would be 
watchful and ready to complain if the labor-union was not 
doing its duty. 

Perhaps a community of natives in New Mexico, satis- 
fied with the earnings of three months, might determine to 
idle the remainder of the year. It is supposable that more 
intelligent men might excite them to such behavior, in order 
that their laziness, by reducing the general dividend, might 
leave a larger balance to be shared among the higher grades 
of labor. But the entire lowest grade in the country would 
suffer. Suit would be instituted at once, and the thriftless 
clan, who would not bear their part in the march of civiliza- 
tion, would find themselves reduced to the ranks of the "in- 
capables" for a season. It passes for argument with some 
to affirm that nothing can be done with such creatures, made 
for gross lives and destitute of higher ambition. But it is 
not so. Those who understand these people know that indi- 
viduals among them are susceptible to finer impulses; and 
every such person is a center of awakening, stimulating in- 
fluences over his neighbors. Let the poorest Mexicans or 
negroes once clearly comprehend that the better things pos- 
sessed by others are equally within their reach, if they choose 
to work for them, and gradually, but surely, they will arouse 
to the endeavor. It is the common way of human progress. 
But who can measure the inspiring difference when that 
freedom of opportunity becomes a manifest and universal 
fact? 

There may be a greater difficulty and danger in the 
zealously acquired unfitness of our people for healthful recre- 
ation. We are not merely serious; waking or sleeping we 



146 THE GOLDEN RULE REPUBLIC. 

are fettered to the same routine. We cherish some lessons of 
what we fondly deem to be grown-up wisdom, but they are 
learned at a fatal cost. The iron of Puritanism and the brass 
of competition have entered into our souls until the grace 
of care-free, natural happiness has become well-nigh atrophied 
within us. So far has the disease advanced that many cannot 
think of manly energy in the hours of action as consistent 
with child-like heartiness of recreation in the hours of rest. 
They look upon the genuine ease-taking of some less vigorous 
and dominant races with contempt, unconscious that they 
themselves illustrate an opposite and perhaps equally unde- 
sirable extreme, ignorantly incredulous of a rational middle 
course, which may be able to turn from strenuous achieve- 
ment to complete relaxation at a moment's call. The ignor- 
ance is pardonable, for it is caused by unnatural conditions; 
but the remedy for the trouble will need no thought; it will 
come gladly with the advent of freedom and the good, new 
times of the Golden Eule. 



THE GOLDEN RULE REPUBLIC. 147 



§ 15. THE EIGHT TO HONOR. 

In the Golden Rule republic, for perhaps the first 
time in the world, there would be deliberate emphasis given 
and attention paid to the citizen's right to honor. The sub- 
ject has not often been viewed in that way. Certain individ- 
uals and certain classes have received abundant honor, always, 
but the scarcity of public appreciation for others, even those 
most remarkable for illustrious virtues or splendid talents, 
has pointed many a proverb. It must then appear strange 
to suggest that the chief delight, the coveted reward, of am- 
bition should be made in any shape a common privilege of 
the masses, Distinction would be lost if honors could be 
universal. 

But the plan we have to propose does not end in a para- 
dox; nor does it emulate the celebrated militia company, who 
were all officers; it recalls rather the Army of Italy, when 
Bonaparte stirred each private soldier to feel that a marshal's 
baton might be hidden in his knapsack. The chosen ground 
of honor in the new republic must be merit. Through the 
long ages of the past, the leaders of mankind have drawn 
apart from and above their fellows, assuming titles which re- 
veal the foundation of their ideas of honor, in distinction 
from other men. And, because honor that depends upon 
position and circumstances is quite separate from good or ill 
desert, they have contrived to make it hereditary, securing the 
monopoly to their children and their children's children. 
This is one thing the the Constitution of the United States 
forbids, and that the social commonwealth never could toler- 
ate. No man there would be able to claim an iota of advan- 
tage on account of his ancestry. Everyone would have to win 
credit for himself alone. 

During the period of transition from competition to co- 
operation, while new institutions and habits were growing 



148 THE GOLDEN RULE REPUBLIC. 

settled, the commonwealth would have added reason for lay- 
ing stress upon its system of honors, inasmuch as a predomi- 
nant impulse to exertion under the old order, the desire for 
riches, would perhaps, for a time, be partly nullified. It would 
not be long before the slenderest intellect would see the con- 
nection for himself personally between work and dividends, 
increased production and multiplied enjoyments, but, for a 
time, the accustomed pressure of that motive might be weak- 
ened. Human nature, however, has many sides, and socialism, 
being in harmony with the true order of nature, can address 
them all. Eewards would be suited to every line of rational 
ambition. There is no reason in the claim of any man to 
peculiar regard on the ground that he is his father's son. 
Such regard will be yielded as freely as ever by those who 
cherish the feeling, but it would be no matter of public 
concern. 

Some men covet official distinction, and the common- 
wealth would have its full quota of public stations, accom- 
panied with no less real power than in less democratic coun- 
tries. A member of a labor council would bear as much dig- 
nity as a member of a city or corporation board possesses 
among us. N"o potentate on earth could fill a loftier seat than 
the chief magistrate of the Golden Eule republic. We cannot 
so much as anticipate the variety of public testimonials that 
may be rendered to merit of every kind. If the policy be- 
comes rooted in the popular mind, the right occasions for it 
will be seized by instinct and beautiful devices will spring 
into being to meet them. The workman who surpassed his 
comrades, or her comrades, in skill at any handicraft; the 
inventor, whose machine achieved eminent success; the dis- 
coverer in any realm of nature at home or abroad; the man 
or woman whose acts of service to the state, in social rela- 
tions or in labor or in politics, deserved such acknowledgment ; 
the hero in humanity or in fidelity to duty, in peace or in 
war; would all find public recognition answering fairly to 
each one's desert and wishes. 

The grades in the industrial army would of themselves 
be a series of honors, especially when conferred in advance of 
the regular promotion, and they would carry pecuniary re- 



THE GOLDEN RULE REPUBLIC. 149 

wards as well. Perhaps a sum of money might be given in- 
stead of a decoration or a title, if the recipient preferred ; but 
where the dividend would insure, not merely a living, but 
ample comfort, men would not often choose the cash. And 
this probability, as to which we think most readers will agree, 
is evidence against the assumption that common men can be 
moved effectually only through their material interests. Pe- 
cuniary rewards are right, and in the case of valuable inven- 
tions or discoveries, or the supplying of means to genius for 
release from ordinary labor to devote itself to its own price- 
less pursuits, they may be most appropriate. 

The subject of rewards and honors for genius is a charm- 
ing one, but an attempt to cover it would lead us too far. In 
every department of art, literature, science, philosophy, schol- 
arship, the commonwealth may learn by the experience of 
other nations, from Athens to the present time, how to dis- 
tribute rewards that will be prized above rubies. France, in 
particular, could furnish some excellent lessons. A youthful 
author would test his powers and make his reputation very 
much as he does today. We shall have to speak in our next 
section of the publishing of books and periodicals. But when 
his work secures public attention, far easier than now, since 
literary taste would no longer be depreciated in contrast with 
the worship of Mammon, we might then see "what shall be 
done unto the man whom the king" — the sovereign people— 
"delighteth to honor." The reward most coveted for sub- 
stantial value would probably be a pension, releasing from 
the labors of the industrial army; but there would be many 
others even more pleasing to the finely ambitious spirit. 

The student in any school of art, such as painting or 
music, would have every possible facility given him to excel. 
A "Prix de Kome," or a fellowship for the study of music, 
would meet his early successful efforts, and from that point 
onward he would have an open path to fame, and honors 
would wait for him as for the poet. The works of the paint- 
er's or the pianist's own hand, or of the singer's voice, would 
stand upon a different footing from their reproductions. The 
latter would be reckoned in the same manner as books among 
the publications of the year. The former must be priced 
separately at what each will bring, and, unless they have been 



150 THE GOLDEN RULE REPUBLIC. 

executed outside of the hours belonging to the industrial 
army, the proceeds would go in equity to the commonwealth, 
which had supplied foundation and frame work for the art- 
ist's genius. Pensions might be granted for honor's sake, 
and wherever the income from the works of an author or an 
artist equalled the product of his grade, a pension with ex- 
emption from the army would readily be given him. There 
are not a few articles wrought in gold or silver, porcelain, 
tapestry and other materials, which possess the same quality 
of individual value; and artistic skill in design or execution 
ought not anywhere to be left unnoticed. But a people of 
real intelligence, who have leisure to attend to the subject, 
and become interested, will find ways of solving all these 
questions. 

We have used a word of objectionable sound to most 
American ears, the word "title." But, if you reflect, there is 
nothing necessarily undemocratic about a title. Our forefath- 
ers dreaded the beginning of titled classes in their young re- 
public like those which ruled society in Europe, knowing well 
that from the Bay State to the Carolinas there were candi- 
dates ready for such classes, who would eagerly grasp their 
pomp and rank as they already possessed an undue share of 
the power. Genuine popular sovereignty did not come until 
the second quarter of the nineteenth century, and then was 
no unmixed blessing; but year by year, as the masses have 
gained in knowledge, it has proved its Tightness. Why did 
not a colonial aristocracy that produced such men as George 
Washington and John Hancock retain the control it held in 
their days? Because the securities of an aristocracy, in per- 
manent land tenure and legal privileges, were wanting. There 
were no means of compelling recognition for a caste, and 
without these the titles cannot form an effective bond of 
union. 

We have more titles now in America, in the countless 
fraternal orders, than were invented in the ages of feudalism, 
but they portend no mischief to the state. There are thou- 
sands of Honorables in office or out of office, thousands of 
D.D/s, L.L. D/s, and so on, but there is no tendency among 
them to stand together as a rank superior to their fellow-citi- 
zens. They simply cannot, and therefore no one thinks of it. 



THE GOLDEN RULE REPUBLIC. 151 

The matter is not of grave importance, as though there might 
be few other expedients for conferring honor; but we would 
suggest that a form of distinction so naturally and highly 
valued, as the conduct of multitudes in our American republic 
demonstrates, may wisely be employed by the social common- 
wealth. What our constitution forbids is a "title of nobility," 
that is, of an established, aristocratic class, an impossible 
thing under socialism. 

If titles are enjoyed in the new republic, many of them 
will, perhaps, be new ones, in preference to such as have been 
so closely associated with arrogance and tyranny in the past. 
But the expedients for giving judicious public recognition to 
merit may be collected from the practice of all lands and 
times, as well as from the inspiration of the hour; indeed, 
there is too much danger of a touch of the ridiculous in sud- 
den devices, even of great statesmen. Let the current of am- 
bition shifted from riches only set long enough this way, 
and our children would join with enthusiasm in bestowing, 
or accept with pride, a more copious variety of crowns and 
decorations than were known to Greece or Eome or the days 
of chivalry, no less approved than the familiar thanks and 
resolutions, medals and more costly testimonials, prizes, pen- 
sions and honorary privileges. We have lived to see the day 
when a very dirty dollar is regarded as an object worthy the 
energies of a man, while a ribbon, though expressing the well- 
earned esteem of thousands, would be looked upon as a bit 
of child's play, but we trust that our children may live to see 
these dispositions in a measure reversed. It is not impossible 
— human nature is not mean enough for that. 

Much of the real worth of such public recognition de- 
pends upon the source from whence it proceeds. Some hon- 
ors would be peculiarly grateful to a man if rendered to him 
by the community at his own home; and, in addition to all 
awards from the public hand, as many private occasions 
would arise as ever for tributes from citizens to those whom 
they love and admire. These do not fall strictly within our 
scope, although no honors may afford keener pleasure. We 
mention them in order to express our wish and expectation 
that, in a better society, the impulse to such kindly actions 



152 THE GOLDEN RULE REPUBLIC. 

will be more sincere and free and frequent than it is todav. 
Other forms of honor, to be most precious, should be con- 
ferred by the acknowledged masters in some art or profession; 
and others still would increase in value with the rank of the 
legislative body or the magnitude of the popular constituency 
that bestows them. The most exalted of all might be a vote 
of thanks by the entire commonwealth. 

The enduring quality of the system would depend upon 
intelligent honesty in its administration. It must be frankly 
admitted that mistakes would occur, and sometimes the re- 
wards would be captured by assurance and intrigue. But the 
chief of such abuses always have occurred through private 
channels of authority, which would be stopped more thor- 
oughly under socialism than ever before. If the results, as a 
whole, were such as to win the people's confidence, the sys- 
tem would stand. 

It need not cause any concern if the list of citizens de- 
serving of public rewards and receiving them should lengthen 
to the utmost possible extent, and the same persons were to 
count their decorations by the score. Distinction is not essen- 
tial to honor. The two main foundations are sincerity and 
merit. The dignity of an equal place among the goodly fel- 
lowship of the prophets or the noble army of martyrs would 
not be increased by lessening their number. If the purer so- 
cial influences of the Golden Eule republic might induce the 
generality of men to covet companionship in merited honor 
rather than selfish isolation, that moral triumph would alone 
be its sufficient glory. 



THE GOLDEN RULE REPUBLIC. 153 



§ 16. THE EIGHT TO FREEDOM OF ASSOCIATION 
AND EXPRESSION. 

The rights of the citizen to freedom of association 
and expression are so closely connected in social relations that 
we can treat of them together ; and the attitude of the United 
States upon these questions is so thoroughly just that it re- 
quires but little comment. 

No rights are more necessary, and few can be more un- 
qualified; nevertheless, they are not without a limit. It is 
not the part of a wise government to suffer conspiracies 
against the peace or morals of society to ripen into overt acts. 
No government in the world, however, could better afford to 
be uncareful about domestic foes than the social common- 
wealth, and none would prove itself more magnanimous, for 
it would have the broadest of all foundations. In exact ratio 
as the minds of men became habituated to the customs of 
socialism, it would become difficult to overthrow their settled, 
contented order, until finally it would be impossible. Changes 
for the better might be constant; but another revolution in a 
society built and compacted at last upon the Golden Rule — 
never. If associations organized by the forces of capital or 
otherwise for political agitation against the state should re- 
ceive the widest practicable tolerance, we may rest assured 
that every imaginable form of association for other purposes 
would find shelter under the socialist flag, so long as their 
acts and influence did not offend against common morality 
or civil order. No company of people has a right to establish 
a moral plague-center under the shield of liberty; and of 
that the state must be the judge. 

No more can a community tolerate one teacher of im- 
morality, either by tongue or pen or picture, even in private, 
who scatters foul thoughts and sows the seed of crime; and 
here again the state must be the judge, Socn tes would have 



154 THE GOLDEN RULE REPUBLIC. 

deserved fine and imprisonment if he had been, as was charged 
against him, a corrupter of youth. The laws concerning libel 
and slander are based upon righteous principles. Decision 
in such cases is not always easy; because the citizen has an 
absolute right to freedom of opinion, and no less right to 
a high degree of freedom of utterance. Errors of judgment 
may be committed sometimes ; for the line between the lawful 
and the unlawful must be somewhat vague. The general jus- 
tice of results will, of course, depend upon the intelligence 
and love of liberty and moral soundness of the people; and 
in this no community could excel the American social com- 
monwealth. 

The chief interest of the right of liberty of expression 
may lie, for us, in its application to the publishing of books 
and periodicals. The government itself, in its various de- 
partments, would do a vast amount of publishing, especially 
of educational text-books; and a book might be adopted into 
its lists as one form of honor to the author. This would 
take place oftenest under socialism, as it does now, in pro- 
moting the issue of expensive monographs or scientific trea- 
tises of limited circulation ; but upon occasion the work might 
be a great drama, or any other production of genius. 

If any person wished to put forth a book, prepared, of 
course, outside the hours of labor, his first query would be, 
whether to offer it to the national Bureau of Printing, or 
to assume the risk himself. If he followed the former course, 
the manuscript would have to be examined and approved. 
If it were accepted, the author would have no further respon- 
sibility, and no share, except as a citizen, in the profit or loss. 

Perhaps the examiners would decline the risk. Then 
the author might assume it; indeed, this is what, in most 
instances, he would do at the outset. If he preferred gov- 
ernment work, as the cheapest while at the same time un- 
surpassed in excellence, he would be required to give security 
against loss by the publication. The cost would vary widely, 
of course, with the style, but at any rate would be lower than 
it is now. It would not entail a burdensome debt upon a 
man to defray the publication of an ordinary volume. The 



THE GOLDEN RULE REPUBLIC. 155 

profit or loss would be his alone. Copyright would not be 
given. 

Perhaps, however, instead of intrusting his manuscript 
to one of the printers' unions, the author would select an in- 
dependent publisher. Probably there would be such firms; 
for the business is in several respects unique among manu- 
factures, dealing in the products of the mind and less en- 
tangled than almost any other in the web of competition. 
Very few wholly independent occupations could survive where 
the same kinds of business were carried on by the common- 
wealth without profit, and many more would be excluded by 
the national ownership of the land. But there seems no 
reason why publishers may not engage authors to write for 
them, or arrange with them to share the risks and the profits, 
in the future as in the past. The field for such enterprises, 
however, in view of the cheapness of publication at indi- 
vidual expense, would appear to be almost confined to the 
larger and costlier classes of works. 

Authors of reputation would naturally pursue the second 
method we have described ; and sometimes their profits might 
be notable, although the absence of copyright ■ and the gen- 
eral access to libraries would tend to keep them down. The 
expansion of literary activity would be immense, but it would 
be natural, stimulated indeed by freedom, but springing out 
of universal prosperity and growing culture. S"o censorship 
would be desired or possible. If an author's manuscript were 
rejected in all quarters, he could publish it himself. Com- 
plaints against the moral character of any publication might 
be brought before the courts by private parties or by the 
state, but they must follow the regular order of procedure. 

No periodical touching its own policy could be issued 
by the government, because it would be manifest injustice 
to uphold what might be the sentiments of only a part at 
the expense of all the citizens. But periodicals without num- 
ber could be started; and the printers' unions would issue 
them, provided a guaranty was furnished of protection from 
loss. Bellamy suggested that the subscribers to a paper might 
form a kind of constituency, with power to control it, even 
to electing the editor. Whether this may be a workable prop- 
osition or not, we are sure that the press would hold a new 



156 THE GOLDEN RULE REPUBLIC. 

relation to the people when editors were no longer tempted 
by the gain of advertising, or coerced by a partisan boss, or 
induced by prospect of future favors from the money power 
to write as that power wishes. It is certain that a fresh, 
reviving breath of sincerity would blow through the editorial 
offices. If any person wished to share in the national divi- 
dends and in the retiring pension, he must act his part in 
the industrial army. But if editors and reporters were to 
redeem their time by payment of an equivalent for their 
service, they would, of course, be at liberty to occupy them- 
selves at their own pleasure, still retaining their grade and 
their retiring privileges. As for promotion in grades, it would 
follow the same rule as in the case of religious ministers, to 
be described in the next section. 

Every class of periodicals, from the commonest to the 
most elegant, would flourish among such a reading nation. 
The costly, first steps in these undertakings might be effected 
in more than one way; and after a paying circulation had 
been attained, it would be easy to provide for the future 
management. Some papers, it may be, would become what 
Bellamy imagined, literal voices of the people; others would 
be owned by a few individuals; and others would represent 
various societies, arts, or professions. In any event, it would 
be the noblest and freest press that the world has seen. 



THE GOLDEN KULE REPUBLIC. 157 



§ 17. THE EIGHT TO WOKSHIP. 

The right of the citizen to worship is, by its na- 
ture, of transcendent value. No secure foundation for the 
highest, practical morality can be laid except in the fear of 
God, the loving and willing fear of our Father in heaven. 
The difference of outcome for the masses of men is great 
between those shadowy hopes and fears, touched up with in- 
evitable superstitions, which are born of Eastern or Western 
philosophies, and the vital, warm, pure affections that awaken 
under "the light of the knowledge of the glory of God in the 
face of Jesus Christ." But already my assertions have stirred 
the antagonism of some, who strongly reject my conception 
of the Supreme Being, and yet maintain an admirable moral 
purity in their own lives. However momentous the truth 
contained in my brief confession of faith may be, I may leave 
it to the proof of time, since those who differ most widely 
from me are cordially at one in their approbation of the 
moral code put forth by the man, Jesus of Nazareth. Whether 
morality depends, in the long run, upon true religion or not, 
we are agreed that social order depends upon morality, and 
we coincide as to the standard of morals. Evidently, there 
is no reason why persons who can unite upon the same basis 
of civil relations should be separated, in that respect, by any 
diversity of religious belief. The attitude of the social com- 
monwealth toward all religions and churches must be that 
occupied by the United States, expressed in the first Amend- 
ment to the Constitution. 

The applications of the principle under socialism that 
seem to call for a word in our inquiry are few in number. 
Churches and every kind of ecclesiastical organization, like 
all associations for benevolence or reform, would be purely 
voluntary in their character and support. If a religious 
body desired a pastor or a mission secretary or a teacher or 



158 THE GOLDEN RULE REPUBLIC. 

any other agent, they might command his entire services by 
paying annually for his release from the industrial army. 
He would then continue to receive the dividend for his liv- 
ing as before. Such an intermission from the army would 
not at all prejudice a man's claim to retirement with pension 
at the proper age, for the equivalent of his years of labor 
would have been paid to the commonwealth. The grading of 
ministers (and in like manner of editors) would probably 
agree with their treatment by their constituencies. The 
grade-courts would advance them in the lists if the annual 
exemption-money had been correspondingly increased by their 
congregations; and would retire them upon application, not 
sooner than the legal period, and with pensions answering to 
the average of their incomes for the previous nine years, up 
to the limit of the highest dividend. 

Laws for the observance of Sunday, or any other day, 
upon religious grounds, would not be enacted in the co-op- 
erative commonwealth; but, as a day of rest, the Sabbath 
would require wise legislation where labor was so completely 
under public control. The many public servants who have 
to work on the Sabbath for the general welfare; those who 
must tend the great furnaces that cannot be allowed to cool, 
and the mills that must not stop; the watchers over public 
safety by land and sea; all these and others like them must 
have their day of rest. Securing a weekly rest-day in all 
the national industries would mean a practical recognition 
of Sunday, as the one in which the majority of the citizens 
would most willingly unite. No compulsion can be put upon 
the individual conscience, no hindrance can be placed in the 
way of free agreements or personal conduct in this matter 
of Sabbath-keeping, so long as morality and public order are 
not evaded. Worship may be conducted in accordance with 
heathen customs, provided these boundaries of mutual rights 
are not overpassed. 

If any prefer some other day — it may be, Saturday — 
upon grounds of conscience, every possible arrangement 
should be devised to suit them. It may be practicable for 
them to dwell together in communities, with unions of their 
own; or, if not, they might be encouraged to follow inde- 
pendent lines of labor. They could not, probably, work in 



THE GOLDEN RULE REPUBLIC. *159 

the ordinary unions without sacrificing at least one-sixth of 
their working time and wages. If any reject the day of rest 
and choose to labor upon it, no one would hinder them so 
long as they occasioned no disturbance to the orderly keepers 
of the day either in worship or recreation. But the will of 
the majority as to such a matter as the weekly Sabbath would 
have to be respected. The wheels of public industry, if they 
commanded, would stand still. 

In the Golden Eule republic, every religion would have 
opportunity to reveal its best. Christianity would reap only 
benefit from the social changes, and the Christian church 
would be delivered from a ruinously false position. The dis- 
ciples of Jesus of Nazareth may not stand, by virtue of their 
name, in defence of any one form of government; but they 
must be loyal to the teachings of their Master. The logical 
result of his doctrines is to level all artificial distinctions of 
fortune into one brotherhood of mutual service, where the 
ride is "from each according to his ability" (Acts 11:29), 
"to each according to his need" (Acts 4:35), and the reign- 
ing law is Love. Let it not seem strange that we deduce the 
socialist formula from the very words of the New Testament. 
At Jerusalem, the richer were giving help to the poorer 
brethren, but another day the order of service might be re- 
versed, for the obligation is reciprocal. Now the Christian 
church does not live up to this principle consistently, even 
in its internal relations. 

The trouble is not with incidental faults and failings, 
however many, that are due to the imperfections of certain 
individuals. The world outside the church does not often, 
in times of general amity among men, refuse to acknowledge 
and respect religious earnestness and right motives, even 
when joined to a full share of average human nature. There 
is something wrong on a broader scale. We have widely 
separated witnesses to the extent of this restless sense of 
wrong, ranging from the aristocratic and patronizing Chris- 
tion Socialists in Germany to the unconventional Salvation 
Army. We would not undertake to judge how grave the 
condition of the churches may be; enough to say that it is 



160 THE GOLDEN RULE REPUBLIC. 

serious. Yet it is easy to read the situation, if we approach 
it with eyes unclouded by selfish interests. 

The vital warmth of Love, which touched the cool ab- 
stractions of philosophic morality in the first centuries, kind- 
ling the hearts of men with a purifying spirit before un- 
known, has become chilled in a fog of casuistry. Scholars 
of high fame have been drawn to aid the cause of commer- 
cialism ; and they have constructed a science of political econ- 
omy, in which human beings figure as mere machines operat- 
ing according to non-moral laws. Because the sacredness of 
private property is a wonderful advance of civilization upon 
the savage license of universal robbery, they proceed to argue 
that this hard-won reverence for private property must for- 
bid even the repeal of an unjust system by which one man 
gathers to himself the rightful earnings of thousands. This 
is the view we understand to be taken by the captains of 
commerce and industry, who may be as honorable and kindly 
as other men within the narrower circle of ethics apart from 
business, but may be as selfish and merciless beyond that line 
as any great military commander. Men among them who 
wear the name of Christians talk about themselves as exam- 
ples of the survival of the fittest, with a simplicity that would 
move us to laughter were it not for thinking what the Master 
would say to them. 

We do not offer a justification of the attitude of the 
churches in general toward social reforms when we suggest 
that the guilt of it is not a little palliated by circumstances. 
With the whole force of accustomed usage from ages past 
supporting the competitive system, the established higher 
classes of society all identified with it, learned men laboring 
to defend it, and so many of their own fortunate members 
enlisted in its favor, is it surprising that the mass of churches 
and ministers should stand for a long while uncertain in 
mind, uneasy in conscience and irresolutely conservative? 
They are honestly, although unworthily, perplexed, and in 
the end will prove their sincerity by coming out of the 
slough of indecision on the right side. But anyone can see 
how much stronger the position of the churches in the co- 
operative commonwealth would be; how far more independ- 
ent of such dangerous temptation to subserve the wishes of 
their wealthy members. 



THE GOLDEN RULE REPUBLIC. 161 



§ 18. THE NEW COMMONWEALTH PICTURED. 

We have now set forth all the leading points in the 
organization proposed for the Golden Rule republic. The 
aspect of society in the new commonwealth would be, upon 
the whole, familiar. The same persons in general would be 
found at the head of affairs, except that the professional 
politicians would be no more. Something of an overturn 
would take place in the upper and middle classes when in- 
dustry, ability and character became the sole dependence of 
any man for social position. Not a few sons of the first 
families would fail to rise above the lowest grade, while many 
of the children of the proletariat were climbing to the high- 
est. It is the same today; only, with us, inherited wealth 
and a hundred social props support the fortunate idler, while 
under socialism the changes of level would go on unhindered. 
But the transitions would rarely be sudden or conspicuous. 
The same body of persons in general as at present would 
engage in manufacturing, or farming, or in trades, or would 
do the rough work of the day. 

City and country alike would be wonderfully improved. 
The native of the city, who revisited the scenes of his child- 
hood after time had lent stability to the new order, would 
miss the endless rows of sordid tenements with all their sights 
and smells; and the farmers son, returning home, would 
find the old farmhouse altered, and, very likely, removed 
quite out of liis recognition. Instead, he would survey wide 
avenues and fine roads (for land would cost the public noth- 
ing but a change in its use) lined with such comfortable 
dwellings as he used to admire in the pleasantest suburban 
quarters; and the people in city or country, although varied 
in their individuality beyond anything he remembered in 
the previous era of bondage to caste and fashion, would be 
all of one sort in their mien, in the refinement of their man- 



162 THE GOLDEN RULE REPUBLIC. 

ners, and the tastefulness of their attire. Labor itself would 
be well dressed according to its occupation, for the American 
laborer always chooses to make a good appearance, if he can. 
The returning traveler would mark the absence of carriages 
with liveried servants, and of the pale faces and frayed gar- 
ments of the poor, but what he saw would be familiar, simply 
the American people at their best. 

Some very striking changes, however, would meet the 
eye. Productive labor would be much more conspicuous. 
Workshops and factories would be built upon an entirely 
different scale in beauty and in comfort for the occupants. 
The chief object everywhere would be to produce something 
of value; the distribution of products being regarded as an 
easier and secondary task. Business streets in cities would 
be astonishingly reduced in extent. One store would suffice 
for the wants of fifty thousand people in dry-goods or hard- 
ware; one grocery, or bakery, or market would handle their 
food supply; one smith's, or plumber's, or shoemaker's shop 
would do all the work required; and so on. There would be 
no more banks, or exchanges, or offices of companies and 
agencies and business schemes innumerable. 

But while mercantile pursuits would be so centralized 
as to diminish greatly the number of people engaged in them, 
the public service would be expanded as much more, not in 
the customary official classes — they would continue about the 
same — but in an unprecedented variety of functions for the 
public health, convenience, instruction and pleasure. Noth- 
ing, perhaps, would seem so remarkable as the devoting of 
such unlimited money, pains and invention to the daily hap- 
piness and benefit of the masses. There would be treasures 
of knowledge and taste for those who appreciate them, the 
delights of nature as well as art, and all sorts of good and 
pleasant things, according to the standards of the community, 
for every one to enjoy. The highest in station or talents 
could have nothing better than the common laboring man, 
because the common man deserves the best that can be. The 
casual observer would remark the vastly augmented multitude 
of pleasure-seekers, although the old-time army of that pro- 
fession would be totally disbanded and gone. These, who 
fill the place of the former world of rich society, would be 



THE GOLDEN RULE REPUBLIC. 163 

everybody, in their hours of ease, their holidays, their vaca- 
tions, their years of retirement, made possible by national co- 
operation. All would be industrious people, resting from 
honorable labor, and their very breath would be light with 
liberty from care. 

So many true friends of liberty are yet anxious about 
the effects of a socialist organization upon character! One 
might venture to say that the practical results of what is so 
plainly and imperatively right for us here and now could 
not be evil. It is indeed the question of questions, upon 
which every other must turn. But select, if you please, a 
son of a good family, with friends and prospects, well edu- 
cated, but also acquainted with useful labor — does not such 
a boy promise as much of energy, good sense, ambition and 
success as another may whose range of enterprise is bound- 
less because his hand is against every man ? Socialism would 
mean friends and prospects for every boy. We have given 
a detailed plan of national co-operation, imperfect, of course, 
but, we believe, sufficient to show that the idea is practicable. 
The business world it portrays is one based upon peace, and 
not war ; destitute of the exciting hazards of speculation, and 
the incentives of ruin and despair, but strong in its appeal 
to personal interest as well as to nobler motives. The social 
commonwealth might not provide any better discipline for 
real greatness than William McKinley or Theodore Koosevelt 
enjoyed, although it would afford ample room and verge 
enough for all their powers. But for common men, whatever 
restraints might be imposed by a complete organization of 
labor would count for trifles in the balance when weighed 
against the grand enlargement of freedom and opportunity. 
Our comparison, just now, between the two boys touched the 
point correctly. Both the losses and the gains would be those 
incident to a forward step in Christian civilization. The type 
of manhood ensuing would still be familiar, for it would only 
be the American character at its best. 

We do not forget that time is indispensable to the form- 
ing or reforming of a nation. Moral obliquities may not be 
rectified, moral hiatuses may not be filled out, until the third 
and fourth generations, especially when their origin dates 
from a remote past. But a people who are capable of adopt- 



164 THE GOLDEX RULE REPUBLIC. 

ing socialism are so far advanced already upon the main 
road of progress that further changes may be much more 
rapid. Outward refinement of manners and tastes would be 
accomplished more readily than may now seem possible, when 
a uniformly high level of comfort sustained through the 
whole population arouses new ambition everywhere, while, 
with equal pace, the thoughts of the masses are attracted to 
noble ideals. The deeper work of establishing a pure and 
enduring and prevailing standard of public sentiment among 
heretofore irresponsible multitudes will turn upon the influ- 
ence of a sufficiently active element of right reason and con- 
science in the body politic. We have such elements in 
America, and under socialism they would act freely. 

There will, no doubt, be gratifying surprises in the fair 
fruits of social reform; and, as is common to human affairs, 
vexatious delays and disappointments will occur. The high- 
est, truest breeding will have to ripen slowly. But one of 
the blackest spots upon our civilization would be soonest re- 
moved, a change that in a few years would almost renew 
the face of society. The condition of childhood would be 
transformed. This is something that society can reform at 
once; and socialism would reach it immediately. Parents 
who never had enough before would delight in spending a 
liberal share of their abundance upon their children. How 
quickly the meager little faces would grow round and bright, 
and the harsh voices would soften in the atmosphere of ease 
and peace in the home! The life of the children would 
emerge from its shadows into a new world of health and 
beauty and gladness long before the corresponding results 
appeared among their elders. But these fruits also would 
come in their season. We say not that socialism is a remedy 
for all evils, but that its effects upon the "root of all evils" 
would be so manifold as to constitute a veritable revolution. 

The richest of all the blessings imparted by the Golden 
Eule republic would fall to the lot of women. For the first 
time in history, Woman, like the heir of some ancestral 
estate, would "come to her own." Even more completely 
than man, she has been moulded by her environment. A 
large proportion of the. world of women are happy in their 
relations with men, dependent upon men for support, but 



THE GOLDEN RULE REPUBLIC. 16f) 

repaying them with such care as makes life possible and 
adds happiness to existence. Another host — is it greater ia 
number or less? — are equally, but unhappily, dependent, ren- 
dering invaluable services to those who can, or at least do, 
afford them only a miserable recompense. Their longings 
are to rival their more fortunate sisters, who supply the 
ideals of their aspiration. All the womanly perfections us 
well as imperfections have been developed under such condi- 
tions as these, prolonged through ages; but in view of both 
sides of the case it cannot, as a. whole, be truthfully called 
a state of freedom. 

Now, at this late day, a strange and ominous factor 
enters the perplexing situation, brought in by the swift cul- 
mination of the competitive system, which may gravely alter 
the condition and the character of womankind. We see a 
multitude of women, more than ever cherished such a thought 
before, impelled to try their strength in the field of com- 
petition. What they desire is, to be independent, and the 
natural craving in them for the consciousness of self-control 
is spurred by necessity. The old ideals in their minds are 
fading before worse ones — it is a new and distinctly evil 
thing under the sun. The consequences of an extensive com- 
petition between men and women for subsistence would be 
corresponding moral ruin. 

But socialism would recognize the independent rights 
of women, and abolish the competitive conflict. Not one 
wedding match would then be helped or hindered by money; 
not one maiden would be tempted to form her prospects upon 
worldly wisdom rather than affection, nor to silence the 
inner voice of her native talents and sacrifice her individual 
career for the sake of a marriage settlement; not one woman, 
any more than a man, would be compelled by dependence 
upon someone else, to stint or thwart or belie her own nature. 
Homes would not suffer. There would be as much house- 
keeping in the world as ever, and it would be better than 
ever, because those who performed it would work with a 
freer choice. Imagine, if you can, how social life would 
brighten in a little while, if every woman were set free from 
the sordid strife of commercialism to follow her finer im- 
pulses. The girls of the next generation would grow up in 



!(>G THE GOLDEN RULE REPUBLIC. 

such health and vigor and beauty and grace and intelligence 
and sweetness as neither ancient Hellas nor young America 
has dreamed of. 

The fancy accustomed to draw its pictures from the 
social contrasts which surround us can hardly form a clear 
conception of a community from which all the signs of 
poverty are absent, where every family possesses a comforta- 
ble support and an attractive home, where every family and 
every individual alike is open to incentives of every kind to 
higher living. Such would be the conditions of life with 
national organization of labor and the dividend. The sole 
conceivable objection to this kind of leveling of society is 
that it would result in a monotonous, however high, average 
of welfare; but the man whose heart is really in this idea 
must have his portion in this world alone, for the foreshad- 
owings of the better life beyond us are after the socialistic 
pattern of monotony. There is no substance to the objection 
whatever. Human nature will only bloom more freely in its 
larger environment. There would be circles as aristocratic in 
feeling as ever, and social affinities would act with less re- 
straint than now; only the distinctions of wealth that held 
some circles above the ordinary level being lost they would 
play their parts unnoticed. Life would flow on with the same 
current of mingled passions, accommodating itself, as it has 
done before, to the new bounds of law, and tending to in- 
finite results of blessing as its mighty forces are directed, at 
last, into the wide-spread channels of unselfishness. 



THE GOLDEN RULE REPUBLIC. Uu 



§ 19. OP THE TEANSITION TO THE NEW OEDEE. 

The actual order of a revolution does not often 
agree very closely with the logical. Every soul that would 
enlist in the age-long conflict for the triumph of righteous- 
ness and kindness over selfishness and ■ greed must be pre- 
pared for this, or his courage will sink before his allotted 
service is done. There may be no absolute loss of moral 
energy in the universe ; and yet, if so, it is no less disappoint- 
ing to see how strangely a movement well inaugurated is 
turned into another, perhaps a distinctly evil direction, or 
else is distracted and brought to nothing. We may be sure 
of the ultimate victory of right over wrong. Whatever others 
may fear, our faith in the happy issue of this "Holy War" 
is firm. But this confidence adds interest to the question, 
one of the first to demand attention from the social reformer 
— How can these delays and dangers in the way of our cause 
be reduced to a minimum? If the movement only might be 
held to its true aim, as an arrow to the mark, how speedily 
the day would be won! 

Men cling to their bondage until some last straw makes 
it too heavy to be borne, when, of a sudden, their will stands 
up erect, eyes are unsealed, feelings and opinions are won- 
drously converted. Destiny then depends upon the ideas 
and moral convictions which are at hand to rule the opening 
career. So it will be once more in the pending crisis. It is 
of the utmost consequence that the way be thoroughly pre- 
pared by instruction and persuasion when society at length 
arises to enter upon the co-operative path. Here is the in- 
fluence we can exert upon the remoter future, while the polit- 
ical agitators are leading up to success at the ballot box. 
Socialists understand clearly that their hope lies in educa- 
tion of the public mind and conscience. Let us reflect for 
a moment upon two or three points which deserve emphasis. 



168 THE GOLDEN RULE REPUBLIC. 

It is highly important that the people should be dis- 
abused of any notion that socialism implies an arbitrary over- 
throw of the results of progress; as though this time, in the 
competitive era, society had reached its climax, from which 
socialism would violently tear it down. In many circles, it 
is assumed that the elements of which the socialist party is 
composed are so irresponsible and excitable and hostile to the 
"better classes" that the scenes of the Reign of Terror are 
likely to be repeated if they attain the pow T er. The final 
state anticipated is a military despotism. It is all erroneous, 
an illustration of the misreading of history. These analo- 
gies from the French Revolution and Napoleon have very 
little pertinence today, because the position of the common 
people has been fundamentally changed since then. The 
masses know that the preponderance of political weight is 
falling daily more and more on their side. That idea is 
penetrating the consciousness of the very lowest strata, and 
with important results. We must agree that in a struggle 
to the uttermost, such as is waging between capital and 
labor, there are terrible possibilities of aroused passions. But 
we can say with safety that the masses will not begin such 
a combat, nor will it be easy to drag them into it, for they 
know they have everything to lose by war and everything io 
win by peace. 

Perhaps the dread that intrudes most frequently into 
the reveries of capital is the fear of confiscation. If taking 
private property into the possession of the entire community 
without paying for it is confiscation, then it is inevitable; 
but what would be the real severity of the blow? Humane 
readers, who think at once of partialities, revenges, mock sales 
of homesteads and spoliations by officers of the law, should 
compare the socialistic process and mark the results. No 
person could divert anything to himself from the socialist 
confiscation, for, if he did, the first use he made of it would 
betray him. Eeal estate, buildings, vessels, raw materials 
and manufactured articles, everything produced by labor or 
out of which labor could produce things, would be appro- 
priated as the common property of the nation : excepting 
always whatever may belong under the head of personal 



THE GOLDEN RULE REPUBLIC. 169 

effects, which in many instances are numerous and valuable. 
The bounds of exemption would be defined by law, but the 
rich man's costly furniture and paintings, along with his 
money and jewels, and very likely his racing stud and yachts, 
may be left to him. 

As for the immense property taken by the public, its 
former owners would either accept the revolution and be 
citizens of the co-operative commonwealth, or they would 
choose to be aliens and perhaps would leave the country. 
In the former case every one, being owner of an equal, un- 
divided share in the whole possessions of the nation, would 
have equal privileges with the best, and could ask no more. 
Those who rejected the offer of citizenship would, doubtless, 
insist upon compensation for their losses. But compensation 
would be unjust, and impolitic, if not impracticable. How 
can a claim for indemnity be justified when the property lost 
was held only by legalized wrong, and the law has been 
changed, and the new commonwealth is ready to treat the 
complainants with perfect equity? The ancient rule of law, 
that time confirms titles, has an element of right in it for 
settling questions in an established society, but it would cease 
to apply during a revolution whose object was to found the 
ownership of property, once for all, upon a just and per- 
manent basis. All titles must thenceforth date from the 
new era. 

Many, who sincerely wish to see wealth diffused among 
the people, have yet an idea that it would be w r ell to buy out 
the "magnates" and let them retire with their ill-gotten for- 
tunes. "Set a perfectly fair valuation," they say, "reduce 
each item of stocks to its actual worth; then issue long- 
term, low-rate bonds in payment, and the total will not cost 
more than the robbers are now taking out of us in every 
ten years. Surely that is not an intolerable price for a peace- 
able end to the contest." Possibly not, but let us consider 
before we decide. 

The problem, in its full extent, involves more than the 
satisfying of the stockholders in our corporations. The own- 
ers of real and other property of all kinds appropriated by 
the state would equally urge their claims. We may be sure 
that the co-operative commonwealth would not part with the 



170 THE GOLDEN RULE REPUBLIC, 

majority of the individuals and families who compose our 
wealthy classes without many an earnest effort to retain them. 
Too much of the intelligence and talent of the nation is in 
them to be easily spared. It is quite sure, however, that 
such efforts would not be entirely successful; indeed, if in- 
demnities were given, we presume that few of those who 
were able to live upon the interest of their bonds would 
consent to enter the commonwealth and the industrial army. 

But suppose that by various means the inclination to 
hold aloof from the new order has been effectively checked, 
so far that the number of claimants is brought down to a very 
small minority of those who had been dispossessed. What 
would still be the dimensions of the problem? So incredible 
has been the concentration of wealth within the last two 
or three decades, that the remaining handful would demand 
to be indemnified for the loss of perhaps one-half of the 
property of the nation. As long ago as 1890, 125,000 fami- 
lies in the United States, or 1 per cent of the entire num- 
ber, held 55 per cent of the aggregate wealth, or $33,000,- 
000,000 out of $65,000,000,000. (Spahr, "Present Distribu- 
tion of Wealth in the United States/' pp. 69, 129.) Figure 
it as you will, the principal and interest required for any- 
thing like compensation, every dollar of which must be raised 
by the production and sale of articles of value, would weigh 
heavily even upon the elastic energies of youthful freedom. 
It would lessen the annual dividends; it would lower the 
fund for public improvements; and by these injuries, ac- 
companied by a sense of injustice in them, it would tend to 
arouse a dangerous popular discontent. Eemember that the 
claims have no foundation in justice, and see if there would 
not be a grave injustice in hanging such a millstone round 
the neck of a whole people. Furthermore, the ablest and 
most determined of all the enemies of the co-operative state 
would be embraced in this final residue of irreconcilables, and 
compensation would put into their hands, in the form of 
ready money, a most prodigious supply of the "sinews of 
war." The unwisdom of such a policy is obvious to any 
reasonable man. 

We assume that the idea of compensation would be re- 
jected because of its essential injustice, its crippling and 



THE GOLDEN RULE REPUBLIC. l?i 

discouraging effects upon society, and the prospect of main- 
taining a body of foes more potent for harm to America than 
was the Jacobite court at St. Germain to England. But com- 
pensation is not the only policy. Measures for relief to the 
dispossessed might be adopted, which neither in fact nor in- 
tention amounted to indemnity, and which proceeded from 
generosity and not from justice. There are differences be- 
tween the moral standing of individuals in the capitalist or 
bourgeois mass. It has long been a shrewd practice of the 
financiers to associate a numerous body of small stockholders, 
many of them women and children, with themselves in order 
to gain a wider popular support without sacrificing any of their 
own power. These passive partners in evil-doing have such 
natural exculpation for their presence there as will lend 
them a persuasive claim to a degree of sympathy in their 
reverses. But how much would it be wise or just to do ? 

One thing is certain: the co-operative commonwealth 
should not deal more liberally with aliens than with it's own 
members. A system of pensions, each, of course, limited 
to the one life specified, might be framed to meet such cases 
as were deemed best, but the pension ought not to exceed 
the annual payment received by any laborer from the gen- 
eral dividend. I should wish that the offer of just that sum 
might be accorded to all citizens of the present state who 
declined to enter the commonwealth, and that every such 
person who refused the modest annuity might be free to 
change his mind and accept it, or, better still, take his proper 
place in the commonwealth, at any time, regardless of his 
intervening behavior. But it would be unfair to grant the 
same privileges to aliens as to industrious citizens. The 
commonwealth never could afford to set a premium upon the 
refusal to come under its laws. Perhaps the right line of 
treatment would be to enact that some important depart- 
ments of the public service, which every citizen enjoyed 
freely, should be furnished to resident aliens only at fixed 
prices. This distinction would be clear, and sensibly felt, 
and yet the new republic might restrain itself from needless 
harshness. 

There is no question that confiscation is here, but we 
affirm that the measure is righteous and inevitable, and that 



172 THE GOLDEN RULE REPUBLIC. 

it need not be attended with cruelty or suffering to any one. 
Let comparisons be drawn fairly, without counting the hap- 
piness of one person to be worth more than that of another. 
The world has wept its last tears over the sad fate of noble 
emigres, deprived, for the first time in their lives, of the aid 
of their body-servants. But every individual or household 
deserves a sufficiency of food and comforts, all that is prac- 
ticable, and this, we believe, socialism would render even io 
its enemies. 

The mere transfer of titles from private to public own- 
ership might be accomplished with little disturbance to any 
one, but the immense rearrangements which must follow 
would be the work of years, executed by the will of the 
majority. We may anticipate that one or two legislative 
experiments in this direction, such as the public ownership 
of railroads, would be tried before the hand was laid upon 
real and other property in general; and it is quite probable 
tha.t those who yielded to the socialist revolution in these 
earlier stages would secure a decidedly larger allowance for 
their claims than would be conceded at a later period, when 
the magnitude of the business became fully apparent. 

If property is appropriated to socialistic uses, the rail- 
roads for example, before society is prepared to inaugurate 
the general dividend, it will be necessary to render to the 
owners annuities or else a gross sum in lieu of the dividend 
until the security of a full citizenship can be given them. 
This would be compensation, rather for the lack of the divi- 
dend than for the loss of the property; an intricate problem, 
it may be, to adjust, but we have statesmen and financiers 
who are competent to the task. Many another measure that 
may be criticised by the strictest economists, yet leads no 
less directly toward the right end, will be adopted if the 
revolution goes through in peace. There is a strong proba- 
bility that the advance of public ownership may prove to be 
so gradual that confiscation will never come to the front in 
practical politics. 

The title of socialism is very commonly applied to a 
certain number of peaceful and legal, but revolutionary meas- 
ures proposed in order to establish general co-operation. We 
are not now contending about words. The thing is, in re- 



THE GOLDEN RULE REPUBLIC. 173 

ality, much more than this. It is a grand, social movement, 
the most decisive steps of which have already been taken. 
When universal suffrage, clothed with adequate power, be- 
came a fact anywhere in such proportions as to be able to 
demonstrate and defend itself, the world was committed be- 
yond repeal to the coming era of socialism; for, the admit- 
tance of men, as men, without any out-of-reach qualification 
of the franchise, to a share in the supreme authority of gov- 
ernment carries within it the possibilities of completest revo- 
lution, and the wheel, already turning, cannot stop short of 
that position of equitable rest. A national co-operative sys- 
tem is not yet realized, but a good many socialistic measures 
toward that end, such as the federal post-office department 
and the public schools, have already been adopted without 
suspicion and with the best effect. Let the people know that 
socialism is no speculative scheme, however economists or 
politicians may define it, but the logical, unavoidable evolu- 
tion of principles which they hold most dear. 

There is another point, as to which I wish to be rightly 
understood. Socialism intends no mere class struggle. Tt 
has that false appearance, however, inevitably, when em- 
ployers, almost with one consent, are ranged upon one Side 
and the employed are on the other. It is practically and shame- 
fully true that if the laboring millions do not unite and fight 
for their own interests their more favored brothers will never 
arrive at a convenient season to concede anything to them. 
We cannot be surprised if the situation looks to the poor 
toiler like war, a war of classes. His hard conditions of 
poverty and ignorance (which he 'feels are inflicted on him 
by the rich collectively) have not taught nor permitted him 
to look far ahead or deeper than to immediate relief. 

The "irrepressible conflict" between slavery and free- 
dom, to which Seward gave that memorable epithet in 1858, 
is renewed by the stern imperative of social evolution upon a 
vastly wider field. Now, as then, it is a moral, not less than 
an economic struggle. Hardty can the lesson be repeated 
too often that, while the intellectual foundation for the move- 
ment must be laid in clear and fixed convictions as feo 
scientific principles diffused among the people, the real mov- 



174 THE GOLDEN RULE REPUBLIC. 

ing forces always must proceed from the affections or pas- 
sions and the conscience. Men may use the language of eco- 
nomic science, but their conduct is prompted by common 
human feelings. There is some danger lest the phrases of 
discussion may cover up and hide this simple fact of human 
nature. It is true, indeed, that irresistible forces are bearing 
us on to that leveling of class distinctions which is so fool- 
ishly dreaded and which yet will enfranchise the rich as well 
as the poor. But how the end shall be reached, and what 
the state of society shall be, whether exhausted from inter- 
necine strife, or flushed with united vigor as in a new spring 
time of the world, must depend upon the same personal, 
voluntary, moral influences which have always gone to the 
moulding of character. We cannot afford to weary of the 
long routine of moral agitation, nor despise it, nor, above 
all, to grow discouraged. The energies are awakened now 
that will tell more and more powerfully upon those who fear 
God and care for righteousness in every class, and they are 
not few. Keason and conscience are steadily, surely, swiftly 
bearing their possessors over to the people's side. Socialist 
principles are gaining influence over the young men of high- 
est thought and promise. The old-fashioned poetic inspira- 
tion stirs no longer at the sound of aggressive war; and 
genius declines to become the laureate for the reign of wealth. 

We are drifting now toward a prodigious change of 
base for the business of the nation, and what our craft needs 
is a brave piloting through the treacherous narrows of pri- 
vate ownership with legislative restraints into the open waters 
of the co-operative commonwealth. Politicians will never 
do this, since it would cut off their profits. There are states- 
men, too, as well as politicians, but they wait for the voice 
of the people before they will boldly take the helm. We 
have more exciting questions at issue in American politics 
than the establishment of direct legislation (as it is termed) 
in municipal, state, and federal affairs, but there is not one 
today that is more urgent. It is the imperative, first demand 
for a peaceful future, the key to all the ensuing problems. 
Let this be judiciously and fully installed ; then let the peo- 
ple command their servants, and men who can stand as peers 



THE GOLDEN RULE REPUBLIC. 175 

beside the framers of the Constitution are ready to obey. 
Given direct legislation, that is, direct control of legislation, 
and American citizens (whether in the United States or 
Canada) to use it, and all political good things become prac- 
ticable. 

We may suppose that a right, wholesome atmosphere of 
public sentiment has been obtained; and that direct legis- 
lation has made the people, at last and forever, free and in- 
dependent; and that further steps of the socialist revolu- 
tion have been accomplished. Still, the most determined 
struggle of all may remain for settlement, and it will prob- 
ably be fought over the ownership of the land. Nothing 
else fills the average man's conception of property like the 
sense of owning a portion of the solid earth — in the expres- 
sive law phrase, it is "real estate." We do not combat this 
idea, nor deny that absolute possession of as much of the 
earth as one can possibly enjoy is the natural ideal of de- 
sirable property. We do repeat the conclusion of our argu- 
ments, that the world is too small for peaceful occupation 
upon the competitive basis, and that socialism offers the 
only method by which every man can possess an equitable 
share, and under which, though it may seem a paradox, our 
largest land-owners themselves would be the happier. 

As to the application of these propositions, the common 
people require a degree of practical familiarity with public 
ownership before giving to it their cordial assent, and espe- 
cially as it would affect the holding of land they must have 
evidence that their liberty, security and comfort would be 
improved. These requirements are not unreasonable. In re- 
sponse, we would reiterate, until every one grasps the idea, 
that the tenure by which a man would hold his home would 
Ibe as secure as any freehold, and that by which he might 
•occupy land at his own initiative would be as free from in- 
terference as any leasehold. 

The sole guaranty of a Vanderbilt for the permanence 
of his home is his riches, which are apt, as in the days of 
Solomon, to make themselves wings and fly away. The home- 
stead of a family in the co-operative commonwealth would 
not rival Biltm^re iji acres <$r costliness, but the security 



176 THE GOLDEN RULE REPUBLIC. 

for it would be nothing less than the continuance of the 
social order. For, a widow or an invalid could afford to pay 
the premium assessed for the choice of their home. The 
masses ought to understand that ownership is now as far 
from absolute as it would be under socialism. Lord Chat- 
ham's eloquent boast, that the king could not enter by force 
into the cottage of the poorest Englishman, was truer as 
to the crown than the nation. The same authority of law 
that protects the poor against rapacious wealth and rank is 
able to make short work with private property, real or per- 
sonal, whenever society demands it for war uses, or health, 
or improvements for the general good. The restrictions upon 
freedom in the management of land under socialism would 
not exceed those which the state of the markets imposes 
now upon the farmer; and all the possible limitations aris- 
ing out of the new tenure would not together outweigh the 
one advantage of enjoying the entire fruits of his industry. 

Custom is necessary to render all these distinctions ap- 
parent, for we prize and miss chiefly, at first, the things to 
which we have been accustomed, even though the new are 
better. Let us, therefore promote vigorously every kind of 
rational experiments in public ownership and control; those 
in particular which apply it directly to the land. Some of 
the measures tried will fail for a time, and perhaps utterly; 
but that will be no cause for fear. The American people, 
having once put their hand to the plow, will not look back- 
ward. Successes and failures alike will contribute valuable 
lessons, helping onward to the ultimate goal. 

There are many admirable enterprises which cities can 
undertake for their poorer denizens, appropriating suitable 
grounds to their benefit, above all, providing homes for them 
and becoming their landlords, a policy in which English 
cities have led the way. There are opportunities for states 
and still more for the federal government to make leases 
of lands for farming or many other purposes, in districts 
reclaimed by irrigation and in all the undisposed-of public 
domain. Such enactments by Congress would furnish tests 
of the difficulties accompanying public ownership, and might 
bring its actual merits fairly and closely under general ob- 



THE GOLDEN RULE REPUBLIC. 177 

servation, which is much to be desired. New Zealand already 
is setting us a brave example. 

It is quite probable that the railroads and other public 
utilities and the anthracite coal mines will be owned and 
operated by the people, and even that many of those manu- 
factures which have been most perfectly organized and con- 
centrated, such as iron and steel and oil and sugar, will be 
nationalized, and the public may have time to grow accus- 
tomed to these new and strange things, before the claim to 
individual freehold in land is given up. And in the interval, 
while the common people are becoming wonted to the use 
of their expanding powers, there will be room to try whether 
any part of the old competitive order can be preserved. It 
is a favorite idea among our American social students, that 
if natural monopolies and public utilities are taken out of 
private hands, the free play of competition over the remain- 
ing fields of industry may be restored and kept unbroken, 
with the most healthful effects possible upon society. We 
should cheerfully accept the situation if it proved to be so, 
for our concern is for results rather than methods. 

But we are sure that moral wrong will never end in 
practical good. The idea is, that if certain principal sources 
of national wealth are administered by the government for 
the common benefit, the less successful, who are often the 
more honorable, contestants in the battle of life will be able, 
with the help so afforded, to maintain their ground. In 
other words, the community is expected to prosper through 
keeping the Golden Rule in one-half of its life and the Devil V 
code, the rule of the strongest, in the other. And Christian 
scholars imagine that the strongest, manliest, highest type of 
men is to be developed by such means ! 

Consider how the compromise would work. Suppose, 
what is most likely, that the farmers were left open to com- 
petition as at present, The wealthier agriculturists would 
derive advantage from cheap transportation, cheap coal and 
so forth equally with the poorer, while by their larger capital 
and scale of production they could undersell the poor man at 
least as much as ever. What is to save the weaker men 
from being shoved to the wall the same as now? Then 



178 THE GOLDEN RULE REPUBLIC. 

combination would be as easy as ever, and, however vast the 
number of farmers may be, the process of reducing them to 
tenancy and consolidating agricultural pursuits like manu- 
factures would go on as it is going on today. Public own- 
ership would lessen the expense of living so far as it was 
adopted, but nothing could hinder the landed proprietors 
from lowering wages, and they would do so as nearly as pos- 
sible in the same ratio. The only weapons of resistance to 
them would be strikes or arbitration, and the power that can 
make arbitration compulsory can do something better still. 
Experiments at harnessing competition and co-operation 
together can have but one issue. Such experiments, like 
other compromises, leave everything unsettled. The fight- 
ing would not be different, even if the arena was smaller 
than before. Are we to satisfy our hearts with this? Do 
those who entertain the thought of such a "modus vivendi" 
really care to terminate the war of classes by abolishing the 
classes, lifting the worse than senseless reproach from manual 
labor by equalizing, in character as well as fortune, the 
masses who hope for no more than a subsistence with the 
ranks that never dream of enjoying less than plenty? At 
the bottom of the question lies the Master's Golden Eule. 

The grandest step in the social revolution will be 
achieved when the land becomes entirely the property of the 
nation; but the mode of distributing labor and its products 
may not yet be completely determined. In this book we have 
detailed plans for accomplishing both these objects. The 
former of these, the national organization of industry, might 
be readily evolved from the labor unions. The latter, the 
dividend, would probably encounter a wider challenge; and 
yet it seems to the writer to be the sole possible course when 
co-operation has once been chosen as the policy and land and 
labor are nationalized. 

But in all these great affairs the incalculable value of 
the personal element of leadership must be recognized. There 
are able men in Congress and out of Congress whose wisdom 
consists in devising ingenious compromises for tiding over 
a difficulty; and they are useful and successful in ordinary 
times. Xow. however, we are swept on toward an emergency 



THE GOLDEN RULE REPUBLIC. 179 

in which temporary expedients will not answer. The topmost 
line of a newly-turned page in the book of eternal fame, 
brighter than any that has preceded it, stands waiting for the 
name of one who will foresee the goal of Justice and Lib- 
erty in the distance and courageously declare the vision to 
the people, a man who can also enter into the people's thoughts 
and direct them to the right measures, within practicable 
reach, yet differing from mere expediency as they rest upon 
unfailing moral principles and are steps along the road to 
the foreseen consummation. 



180 THE GOLDEN RULE REPUBLIC. 



§ 20. AFTER-WOKD TO THE EEADEE. 

We have come to the end of these arguments and 
speculations, and they amount to a fairly full survey of 
the mechanism of a commonwealth. Is anything in this 
book out of harmony with the words of the Lord Jesus in- 
scribed at the beginning? Can society be squared with that 
standard of Tightness at the price of any slighter revolution ? 
But, perhaps, these interrogatories, important as the second 
one may be, may seem less pertinent than another: Are the 
last words in the title of the book justified, or is it all Utopian 
fancy? For the word Utopia has in it a note of the im- 
possible. 

Many are disposed to brush aside considerations derived 
from human fraternity, and reasoning directed to any moral 
motive, unless it be the sense of justice. They dwell rather 
upon the logic of events, which are driving on to a general 
wreck of the system of commercialism. It is plain that the 
mighty trend of evolution is toward socialism. But we may 
leave the inevitable to take care of itself. And there is more 
to be thought of in these reforms than the materials for a 
winning platform in the next campaign. Xever has an 
institution endured long and worn well unless it rested upon 
the moral law. Whatever is alien to righteousness and broth- 
erly helpfulness must sooner or later be sloughed off from 
the social body and fall away with waste and pain. The 
ethical question penetrates deeper than the utilitarian. 

Now the decision of this momentous issue between right 
and wrong always depends upon the plane of civilization in 
the community. It' is the sincere belief of the writer of 
these pages that moral forces will prevail in America; and 
that, in the anticipations of a better and happier state which 
he has outlined, he is looking in the direction of what is to 
be. It will be enough merely to have set forth a possible 



THE GOLDEN RULE REPUBLIC. 181 

ideal. Let no one pronounce hastily that the masses, bred 
for ages in the habits of selfish competition, cannot be trans- 
formed into titness for such an ideal commonwealth, at least, 
not without the lapse of many generations. A hopeful readi- 
ness for new things is breathing in the air, and no one can 
tell how much the uplifting energies of virtue and intelli- 
gence, joined with the pressure of necessity, may bring to 
pass even in a single lifetime. The society depicted here 
would not differ more widely from our United States than 
we do from existing conditions in some parts of Europe. If 
man is not essentially "a fighting and quarreling animal"; 
if the illusions of success under commercialism (the real 
dreams) are dissipated by the stern experience of competitive 
war; if the spell of allegiance by which many are bound in 
obedience to few is destroyed by education and loyalty is 
raised to its true, derivative meaning; if there is hope that 
the people will construct the fabric of their new liberties in 
an enlightened and kindly spirit; then, surely, the Golden 
Eule republic is no Utopia. 



GL* 



LB My '09 



.1 









Tk 



Golden Rule 
Republic 

NO UTOPIA 

BY WILLIAM H. RANDALL 




